Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made

By Alan Eisenstock

The official companion book to the hit feature-length documentary, Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made, in theaters and on video on demand June 27th 2016

In 1982, in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, Chris Strompolos, eleven, asked Eric Zala, twelve, a question: "Would you like to help me do a remake Raiders of the Lost Ark? I'm playing Indiana Jones."

And they did it. Every shot, every line of dialogue, every stunt.

They borrowed and collected costumes, convinced neighborhood kids to wear grass skirts and play natives, cast a fifteen-year-old as Indy's love interest, rounded up seven thousand snakes (sort of), built the Ark, the Idol, the huge boulder, found a desert in Mississippi, and melted the bad guys' faces off.

It took seven years.

Along the way, Chris had his first kiss (on camera), they nearly burned down the house and incinerated Eric, lived through parents getting divorced and remarried, and watched their friendship disintegrate.

Alan Eisenstock's Raiders! is the incredible true story of Eric Zala and Chris Strompolos, how they realized their impossible dream of remaking Raiders of the Lost Ark, and how their friendship survived all challenges, from the building of a six-foot round fiberglass boulder to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Nov 13, 2012
• ISBN: 9781250013507

Alan Eisenstock

Alan Eisenstock is the author of Ten on Sunday: The Secret Life of Men, Sports Talk: A Journey Inside the World of Sports Talk Radio, and Inside the Meat Grinder. In a career spanning twenty-five years, he has written movies, plays, magazine articles, and television shows. He lives in California.

Reviews for Raiders!

[iluvvideo · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Imagine this. A few kids in Louisiana decided to re-shoot the movie 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'! Not a remake, but a faithful shot by shot homage to their favorite action film. Scouting locations, finding (and in some cases building) props, designing realistic special effects, casting and story boarding each shot in painstaking detail. A summer project that started in their early teens and lasted seven years! Doggedly pursuing their goal thru relationships beginning and ending, breakups, drug use, boarding school, ever changing parental support (sometimes interference), local laws, weather and more could not stop them. Best friends who became enemies and some relationships that deepened, turning into life long friendships.Of course as they began this incredible task, sometimes the production is saved by a sudden flash of brilliance (the rolling boulder scene) or sabotaged from the most unlikely places (trying to get permission to film a scene on a submarine). Even parents Trying to keep the insanity under some control refusing permission to shoot the burning bar scene in the basement of one of the guys home (what do you mean we can't set him on fire? C'mon!)These kids, local neighborhood friends (some just acquaintances) struggled on til the labor of love is complete. And then what? Just stick it in a closet and forget it? I won't go into any of the delicious detail that keeps you entrapped in this story. I think it's just as good as watching the film itself. Let your inner kid out to enjoy themselves. It's worth it!!