Arrive Alive

Arrive Alive is the title of an unfinished comedy film starring Willem Dafoe and Joan Cusack, directed by Jeremiah S. Chechik and produced by Art Linson. The story concerns a hotel manager (Dafoe) and his girlfriend (Cusack) involved in various scams. Cusack was an up-and-coming actress, working on Saturday Night Live, and Dafoe was getting terrific buzz from The Last Temptation of Christ. However, after a week's filming, the producers felt that the lines they had thought so funny in the script weren't getting the laughs they hoped for. The decision was taken to cancel production and write off the $7 million cost. The whole story is related in Linson's book A Pound of Flesh.