Raiders! The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever

Chris Strompolos and Eric Zala filmed a scene-for-scene recreation Raiders of the Lost Ark entitled Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation. They started making the film when they were teenagers in 1982 and it took them more than seven years to complete it. The two borrowed and collected costumes, roped in neighborhood kids to play the other parts, cast a fifteen-year-old girl as Indiana Jones’s love interest, created a giant rolling boulder and even melted off a bad guy’s face. All this was documented in the book, Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made (see the trailer for the book above).

Now, the film has been optioned for a feature film by Jeremy Coon. But first, the two will work with Coon to create a documentary on the making of the original fan film. We can’t wait to hear more about this project as it moves forward. Hopefully, this time it won’t get filmed on Betamax and won’t take seven years to complete.