The core concept for Making Love purportedly occurred to writer Scott Berg while he was touring to promote his 1978 biography Max Perkins: Editor of Genius: the tour occasioned Berg's touching base with several male friends from his college days who confided that they were opting out of marriages for same-sex relationships. Berg said, "I thought this is the next big social movement of our country. What the black [rights] movement was, translated into film in the '60s, what the feminist movement was in the '70s, the gay movement will be in the '80s." Berg pitched a story based on his college friends' disclosures to his friend screenwriter Barry Sandler who like Berg was openly gay. Sandler said, "I resisted [scripting Berg's story] at first" - six months passed before Sandler agreed to collaborate with Berg - "I [had] always written very glossy, Hollywood type of films"..."[Berg's story was] very delicate and potentially explosive...To do this film meant a great deal of self-exploration into portions of my psyche I hadn't been into before." Despite Berg's avowed purpose in "translating" the "gay movement of the '80s" into film, the planned focus of the screenplay for Making Love was as a "husband-and-wife love story." Berg said, "It was very important to have a love story [to interest] a major studio". Sherry Lansing, newly appointed president of 20th Century-Fox, greenlit the project based on an outline of Sandler's projected screenplay, of which a 125-page rough draft was completed in the autumn of 1980 when directing duties were assigned to Arthur Hiller, whose helming of the iconic 1970 film Love Story would be heavily referenced in the promotion for Making Love, the latter film being posited as the "'Love Story' of the '80s". Daniel Melnick, the co-producer of Making Love, would allege that the film's two male leads: Michael Ontkean and Harry Hamlin - and also female lead Kate Jackson - were the "original choices" for their roles while allowing "We did send the script to a few actors who [responded] that they were either not interested or were 'too busy'". Reportedly the film-makers hoped to cast Michael Douglas as Zack to the point that after he passed on the film's original script he was sent a revision which he also passed on. Another actor courted to play Zack: Tom Berenger, purportedly passed on the part due to a scheduling conflict (Berenger did tour