From 1977 until 1980, Lean and Robert Bolt worked on a film adaptation of "Captain Bligh and Mr. Christian", a dramatized account by Richard Hough of the Mutiny on the "Bounty". It was originally to be released as a two-part film, one named "The Lawbreakers" that dealt with the voyage out to Tahiti and the subsequent mutiny, and the second named "The Long Arm" that studied the journey of the mutineers after the mutiny as well as the admiralty's response in sending out the frigate HMS "Pandora", in which some of the mutineers were imprisoned. Lean could not find financial backing for both films after Warner Bros. withdrew from the project; he decided to combine it into one and looked at a seven-part TV series before getting backing from Italian mogul Dino De Laurentiis. The project then suffered a further setback when Bolt suffered a serious stroke and was unable to continue writing; the director felt that Bolt's involvement would be crucial to the film's success. Melvyn Bragg ended up writing a considerable portion of the script.