Director Michael Ritchie was first inspired to make a movie about the film industry after visiting the Venice Film Festival in 1972 during the promotion of his film "The Candidate". Upon learning of George Lucas's own experiences while in Cannes for the screening of "THX 1138", Ritchie enlisted Don Petersen to help write a screenplay that captured the giddy euphoria of a young director attending an international film festival for the first time. As he later divulged to the "New York Times", he chose to make the film "small-scale" and low budget so that he could persuade Paramount to let him assume the right to script approval and control over the final cut as a "quid pro quo". Once a basic outline of the film's story was complete, Ritchie travelled to the 1978 Cannes Film Festival with a second-unit crew to shoot documentary footage that would provide some background flavour, encouraging his cameraman to mix with movie celebrities, eavesdrop on conversations, and record any interesting scenes that developed – such as, memorably, the sight of newscaster Rona Barrett slipping and falling while presenting an item directly to camera. During the Festival, Ritchie recruited Keith Carradine to play the part of Hal, and once Monica Vitti was cast as Maria both Petersen and his fellow screenwriter Walter Bernstein (who also co-wrote Ritchie's previous film, "Semi-Tough") redrafted the script to ensure that these two leading roles closely matched the personalities of the actors.