In 1984, the Mitchell estate - by then two nephews - switched agents and tactics, deciding to authorize a novel rather than the movie sequel. In addition to various screenplays, one writer they hired, novelist/biographer Anne Edwards, actually wrote a 750-page manuscript novel, “Tara: The Continuation of Gone With the Wind.” The movie became bogged down in litigation and has never been made. In 1975, the estate contracted with producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown to create a sequel motion picture. With Rhett walking out the door, leaving Scarlett with the immortal line “My dear, I don’t give a damn,” (Hollywood added “frankly”), Mitchell believed she had written “a natural and proper ending” to her story.īut her heirs thought differently, pursuing an income-producing sequel - movie, book or both - before the estate’s copyright on the characters expired in 2011. Mitchell, who died in an automobile crash in 1949, never wanted her novel of the Civil War South to have a sequel. It topped the bestseller list for 15 weeks, even though reviewers - as the author anticipated - trashed it. As for Ripley’s project, her 823-page book, “Scarlett: The Sequel to Margaret Mitchell’s ‘Gone With the Wind,’ ” published in 1991 was translated into 18 languages and sold well more than 1 million copies.
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