| Everybody Comes to Rick's | |
|---|---|
| Written by | Murray Burnett, Joan Alison |
| Characters | Rick Blaine, Lois Meredith, Luis Rinaldo |
| Date premiered | 1940 |
| Place premiered | United States |
| Original language | English |
| Genre | Drama |
Everybody Comes to Rick's is an American play that was bought unproduced by Warner Brothers for a record figure of $20,000 (equivalent to $341,000 in 2023). It was adapted for film as Casablanca (1942), starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Written by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison in 1940, prior to the United States' entry into World War II, the play was anti-Nazi and pro-French Resistance. The film became an American classic, highly successful and ranked by many as one of the greatest films ever made.
Feeling they had not received full recognition for their contributions, Burnett and Alison tried to regain control of the property, but the New York Court of Appeals ruled in 1986 that they had signed away their rights in their agreement with Warner Bros. Under their threat not to renew the agreement when the copyright reverted to them, the film company paid them each $100,000 (equivalent to $240,000 in 2023) and the right to produce the original play. It was produced in 1991 at the Whitehall Theatre in London, where it ran for six weeks.