it happened." Leon, Doug E. Doug and Malik Yoba have all confirmed in their interview with Empire that it was originally meant to have been a serious sports drama film. The film's working title was Blue Maaga. Before Jon Turteltaub was officially hired, Jeremiah S. Chechik was slated to direct until he moved on to do Benny & Joon (1993) instead. Brian Gibson was also considered to direct, but he dropped out to do What's Love Got to Do with It (1993) instead. Turteltaub used the actual ABC sports footage from the 1988 Olympics and incorporated it into the film. Casting According to Robinson, "The script has been following me around for 3 years." Robinson signed on when Gibson was then the director at the time. Robinson told The Seattle Times, "I was signed more than a year before we actually started." Doug got involved with the film in 1990: "I found Cool Runnings three years ago, when my agent had it on his desk. I knew about the actual event it's based on, the Jamaican bobsled team that went to the '88 Olympics, and even though it's based pretty loosely I thought it made a great yarn." At the time of Doug's audition, Chechik was attached as the director. Doug told The Baltimore Sun: "I got the offer to play Sanka, the guy I'd wanted to play from the very beginning." Lewis had very little experience and was not even allowed to audition at first. He told The Seattle Times, "I was hired to read lines to auditioning actors for just one day. That turned into three weeks. At first they told me they were looking for names, big stars, so I wouldn't be considered, but then they asked me to do a screen test." He also told The Baltimore Sun, "I came in to this film at first to coach the players in the authentic accents." Lewis was officially hired in November 1992. When asked by Empire how he got involved with the film, Yoba was introduced to the casting director, Jackie Brown, by "a gentleman by the name of Jamal Joseph." At the time of Yoba's official casting, Gibson was still slated to direct. Yoba later told Entertainment Weekly that he wrote the Jamaican bobsled song for his audition. Lewis claimed that the executives at Disney wanted Kurt Russell for the role of Coach Blitzer. However, John