TLS signed “Steven,” one page, 6.5 x 8.5, personal letterhead, July 16, 1986. Letter to award-winning playwright and screenwriter Tom Stoppard, in full: "Here is the latest draft of Empire of the Sun that Menno and I have been working on over the last few weeks. You will immediately notice that it is twenty pages longer than the last draft, but I think that it has more 'flown than 'ebb' and, if the characters talk really fast, and I shoot it at half the speed, we should achieve a lot in no time at all. Anyway, this is how Chaplain would have done it. I'm anxious to hear your reactions…good or mauvais." In fine condition, with light creasing to the upper left corner. Starring John Malkovich, Miranda Richardson, and a young Christian Bale, Empire of the Sun was a coming-of-age war film based on J. G. Ballard's semi-autobiographical novel of the same name. Stoppard wrote the first draft of the screenplay, on which Ballard briefly collaborated, and Spielberg, who assumed directorial duties after David Lean and Harold Becker dropped out, hired Menno Meyjes to do an uncredited rewrite before Stoppard was brought back to write the shooting script.
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