success of the film is generally credited to Cronenberg, and that King would not give Boam credit for writing a good script. He said, "It's hard for him to admit that he's not the one who could crack that book. But I think that movie holds together as a real movie. It's not just some kind of weird concoction of Stephen King's." Writing for Warner Bros. Pleased with Boam's early work on Straight Time and a script called The Good Guys, Warner Bros. signed him to an exclusive contract as a staff writer. He was frequently asked to rewrite and polish scripts for "high concept" films with commercial potential. His contract with Warner Bros. was for $3 million, over three years, and had a great deal of flexibility built into it. He was able to pick and choose the projects he wanted to work on, and was able to decide on the rewrite he was offered. His contract also allowed for the possibility of producing and directing projects. His first producing project was for a science-fiction comedy called Space Case, about a Los Angeles detective who specializes in locating people abducted by aliens. The screenplay for Space Case was developed by Boam and screenwriter Richard Outten, and written by Outten. Despite skepticism by Warner Bros. executives, Boam encouraged Outten to finish the screenplay. However, they were beaten to production by another film with a similar story, Men in Black, and Space Case was never made. Innerspace When producer Peter Guber was developing Innerspace, a film about an explorer who is miniaturized and sent into another man's body, he hired a young writer named Chip Proser to write a script for the story. Director Joe Dante thought the story was too much like Fantastic Voyage, and didn't want to direct it. Guber later took the story to Warner Bros. with executive Bruce Berman. Director John Carpenter was briefly attached to the project. Warner Bros. asked Boam to rewrite the script, but he initially refused. "I balked at it," Boam said, "I didn't even think the premise had much merit." Carpenter convinced Boam there was a good story to tell, and Boam wrote a draft. He said, "I took the premise and basically invented everything else." Eventually Carpenter left the project to direct Big Trouble in Little China, and Dante joined as director. Dante said that Boam's screenplay was "a wonderful script