De Laurentiis decided to build a new hotel from scratch, the Hotel Mara, at a cost of $3.5 million (other sources say $4.5 million). He intended to use it on this film and another project he was planning, David Lean's film of the Mutiny on the Bounty story (this became "The Bounty" (1984)), then sell it for a profit. He also decided to bring in his own $350,000 freighter to bring supplies from Los Angeles and New Zealand and installed a new system of electricity.