By all accounts, "The Flintstones" was in trouble.
Fred, Wilma, Barney and Betty needed rescuing, and as Steven Spielberg -- yes, that Steven Spielberg -- looked at the pile of scripts on his desk, he felt he was nowhere close to the answer.
It was the early '90s and Amblin, Spielberg's production house, had acquired the rights to bring "The Flintstones" to the big screen. The original director -- Richard Donner of "Lethal Weapon" and the Christopher Reeve "Superman" movies fame -- had fallen out a while ago and the project had bounced around town a bit before finally landing with Amblin Entertainment.