Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation

Jim Windolf tells the charming story of the quest of three kids from Mississippi to create a shot-for-shot remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark. In 1982, the VCR-less preadolescent cinephiles began compiling a list of 649 shots from the movie using an illicitly recorded audio tape, a novelization, and a comic book. There were boulder problems from the beginning: a bamboo-and-cardboard model wouldn’t fit out a door, a weather balloon sagged, and a chicken-wire rendition blew away in a hurricane. But after seven years, an on-set love affair, and a location shoot on a submarine, the 100-minute Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation finally wrapped. Now 14 years later, it’s a hit at festivals and on the Internet, and the guys have talked with producers about turning the “making of” story into a movie.

See the trailer.