Remakes
The play/film was made for television several times:
1958, in a version starring Art Carney as Elwood, and Marion Lorne, Larry Blyden, Elizabeth Montgomery, Fred Gwynne, Charlotte Rae, and Jack Weston.
1970, in a version for West German television called Mein Freund Harvey, with Heinz Rühmann as Elwood.
1972, in a version also starring James Stewart with Helen Hayes as his sister Veta, Jesse White reprising his role as Duane Wilson, and Fred Gwynne.
1985, in a version for West German television, with Harald Juhnke as Elwood and Elisabeth Wiedemann as Veta.
1996, starring Harry Anderson and Swoosie Kurtz in the Elwood and Veta roles along with Leslie Nielsen and William Schallert.
Producer Don Gregory purchased the merchandising and film rights to Harvey from the Mary Chase estate in 1996. In April 1999, Gregory sold the rights to Miramax Films, who beat out several high-profile bidders, including Walt Disney Pictures (represented by the producing team Barry Sonnenfeld and Barry Josephson), Universal Pictures and New Line Cinema. However, Miramax still intended to have Gregory produce Harvey. Universal was interested in having Harvey with Jim Carrey starring and Tom Shadyac directing, while New Line saw it as an Adam Sandler movie. Harvey Weinstein of Miramax was also considering Carrey and Sandler, as well as Tom Hanks. Weinstein wanted Harvey to be set in a modern setting. Weinstein eventually took the project to Dimension Films, who partnered with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to co-finance. Craig Mazin was hired by Dimension in November 2001 to adapt the screenplay. John Travolta entered negotiations to star in March 2003, but the rights for Dimension and MGM lapsed, which were picked up by 20th Century Fox in 2008. Jonathan Tropper was hired to write the script, which, in August 2009, drew interest from Steven Spielberg as director. As a result, Spielberg pushed back development for an Abraham Lincoln biopic (which was released in 2012); a remake of Oldboy and an adaptation of The 39 Clues. It was then announced that Harvey would be a joint 50/50 production between 20th Century Fox and Spielberg's DreamWorks, with Spielberg and Gregory also set to produce the film. Tom Hanks, who previously worked with Spielberg on Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me If You Can and The Terminal, was considered for the lead role. Spielberg had also approached Robert Downey Jr., but in December 2009 Spielberg opted out after a dispute over his vision for the project.
In December 2018, it was reported that streaming service Netflix had started developing a version of Harvey.
