"the magic christian" was one of peter sellers' favorite books—his gift of a copy to stanley kubrick led to southern being hired for "dr strangelove"—and a film version of the book had long been a dream project for the actor, who intended to play the lead role of guy grand. in 1968 southern was hired for the production and he worked on a dozen drafts of the screenplay. sellers also tinkered with it while southern was working on "the end of the road". at sellers' request, a draft by southern and director joseph mcgrath was re-written by graham chapman and john cleese, two young british tv comedy writers who would shortly become famous as members of the monty python team. cleese later described mcgrath as having "no idea of comedy structure" and complained that the film ended up as "a series of celebrity walk-ons."