"Нілдің Жұлдызы" ("Nil'din Zhuldizi")

1985 adventure comedy film by Lewis Teague
the 1994 Nice & Smooth album

The Jewel of the Nile is a 1985 American action adventure romantic comedy film directed by Lewis Teague and produced by Michael Douglas, who also starred in the lead role, reuniting with co stars Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito, reprising their roles from the 1984 action adventure film Romancing the Stone. Like Romancing the Stone, the opening scene takes place in one of Joan's novels. This time, instead of Jesse and Angelina in Joan's wild west scenario, Joan and Jack are about to be married when pirates attack their ship. The Jewel of the Nile sends its characters off on a new adventure in a fictional African desert, in an effort to find the fabled "Jewel of the Nile". The song performed by Billy Ocean, "When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going", became a major international hit, reaching #1 in the UK and #2 in the US. Location shooting took place at Villefranche sur Mer and the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, Cannes, France, Ait Benhaddou near Ouarzazate and Meknes, Morocco, among other locations, including Zion National Park, Springdale, Utah. At the time, both Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas only made the sequel because they were contractually obligated to do so, although Douglas was much more invested in the film as its producer. Turner was disappointed that Douglas did not ask Diane Thomas, the writer who had penned the script for Romancing the Stone, to return for the sequel, apparently because he decided her asking price was too high. When Douglas agreed to undertake rewrites to please Turner, Thomas was asked to consult on alterations, but Turner remained disappointed with the script. She elaborated in an interview in 2018: " ultimately I read the script on a plane to Morocco, where the film was shooting, and I was furious. It didn’t have what Michael said it’d have. When I got to the hotel in Fez, Michael and I sat down on the floor with three versions of the script. We were trading pages to get a script that was acceptable to both of us. It was, '“I’ll do this if you’ll do that.”' It was frustrating." Filming in North Africa was dogged with problems from unbearable 120 degree Fahrenheit heat to problems with the local crew but the most troubling concern was that the director showed that he was not up to the task of helming an action film. After one massive night scene that was hours in setup, and cast and crew in place, it was only then that someone noticed that there was no film in the cameras. As producer, Michael Douglas exploded; the whole debacle had to be re filmed another day, only after the raw film stock was finally located. More problems with local customs cropped up, with film and equipment mysteriously held up by customs until the requisite bribes were paid. In the end, being only three weeks behind schedule was a minor triumph for Douglas. The use of a General Dynamics F 16 Fighting Falcon mockup was a key element of the main characters' escaping from a fortified town. The wooden, styrofoam and fibreglass mockup was built on an automobile chassis and powered by a 350ci Chevrolet engine. As with the first film, the novelization of the sequel was credited to Joan Wilder, the character played by Kathleen Turner; both books were actually ghostwritten by Catherine Lanigan. The Jewel of the Nile was the final film released on the RCA SelectaVision CED video format. It was also released in other media formats.

While The Jewel of the Nile grossed almost as much as its predecessor, the film was much less successful critically and effectively killed the franchise. Roger Ebert agreed that " it is not quite the equal of Romancing the Stone," but praised the interplay between Douglas and Turner. "It seems clear," he wrote, "that they like each other and are having fun during the parade of ludicrous situations in the movie, and their chemistry is sometimes more entertaining than the contrivances of the plot." Colin Greenland reviewed The Jewel of the Nile for White Dwarf #77, and stated that "The Jewel of the Nile is the sequel to Romancing the Stone, another adventure fantasy with just the right pinch of preposterousness. Against all odds, this is a sequel as enjoyable and endearing as the original." The Jewel of the Nile holds a rating of 48% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 27 reviews. The critical consensus reads: "The sense of romantic spark has waned and the prevalence of stereotypes has grown in Jewel of the Nile, although there is still plenty of swooning action for fans of the first adventure." Then U. S. President Ronald Reagan viewed this film at Camp David in January 1986.

Talk of a third film, again starring Douglas, Turner and DeVito, never got beyond a draft. In The Crimson Eagle, Jack and Joan take their two teenage kids to Thailand where they are blackmailed into stealing a priceless statue. The project languished until 1997, when Douglas as tentative producer announced he was no longer interested. In 2005 and again in 2008, Douglas was working on a second sequel, entitled Racing the Monsoon, although there have been no further developments in recent years. Since 2007, Fox considered a remake of Romancing the Stone with the possibility of a "reboot" of a series. The roles of Jack and Joan would be filled by Taylor Kitsch (or Gerard Butler) and Katherine Heigl. By 2011, the remake was re worked as a television series.