Rob Reiner almost made Larry David's Prognosis Negative

Prognosis Negative would have been a dark comedy that follows a Larry David-esque commitment-phobe who wants to date a terminally ill woman so he can experience love without needing to tie himself down forever. Everyone who read the script loved it. David’s friend Richard Lewis was dating Marilyn Black at the time. She became David’s manager on the strength of the script and set about selling it. Black ultimately got the script to Rob Reiner, who thought it would make a good follow-up to This Is Spinal Tap, which was on the cusp of release. 

Rob Reiner loved the script but went back and forth on whether to direct it and ended up recommending Christopher Guest for the job. However, others started getting their hands on the screenplay, including Richard Dreyfuss, who wanted to turn it into a coming-of-age drama in the vein of Risky Business. Mortified that someone could learn something from his work, David began making “unusual demands” to those looking to buy the rights; namely, he’d have to remain the only writer, and no one could change a word—even for $200,000, which producer David Susskind offered. That deal, of course, fell apart. As Susskind’s lawyer put it in one of Black’s journal entries, “It’s too stacked in Larry’s favor. Robert Redford doesn’t get a deal like this!” 

Read the whole sordid history of Prognosis Negative over at The Hollywood Reporter.