Heaven Can Wait
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Heaven Can Wait is a 1978 comedy film directed by Warren Beatty and Buck Henry. The screenplay was adapted by Elaine May, Warren Beatty and Robert Towne (uncredited) from the original stage play Heaven Can Wait by Harry Segall.
Joe Pendleton, a backup quarterback of the American football team Los Angeles Rams, is looking forward to leading his team to the Super Bowl when he is involved in a terrible collision with a truck. An overanxious guardian angel plucks him out of his body early in the mistaken belief that his death was imminent, and Pendleton arrives in the afterlife.
Once there, he is informed by the mysterious Mr. Jordan that his divinely ordained time of death hadn't yet come, and that his body has been cremated. A new body must be found, and that of recently murdered millionaire Leo Farnsworth is chosen.
Farnsworth's wife Julia and personal secretary Tony Abbott, who are lovers and the murderers of his new body's former inhabitant, are confused by this development, as Joe/Farnsworth buys the L.A. Rams in order to once again be the star quarterback. In order to succeed, he must first convince, then secure the aid of, long time friend and trainer Max Corkle to get his new body in shape to lead his team into the Super Bowl.
At the same time he also falls in love with an environmental protester Betty Logan who wants to confront the billionaire industrialist whose body he now occupies. However, Julia and Abbott are not quite ready to give up on their plans to re-murder the body which Joe has lately appropriated...
