Romancing the Stone Trivia
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50 free Romancing the Stone trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Romancing the Stone trivia quiz covers the 1984 adventure that turned Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito into a team and gave Robert Zemeckis the hit that let him make Back to the Future. It follows Joan Wilder from her New York apartment and her cat Romeo to Cartagena, the jungle, El Corazon and the crocodile that ate Zolo's hand, and it covers the story behind the film: the Malibu waitress who wrote it, the stars who turned down Jack Colton, the negative pick-up deal, the Mexico shoot, the Golden Globes and the sequels that were never made. The Jewel of the Nile gets its own section, from Omar and Al-Julhara to the F-16 built on a car chassis, the script fight Turner won and Billy Ocean's chart-topping single. About a third of the questions are easy for anyone who has seen the films, a third need a closer memory of the plot and cast, and the rest reward the fans who know the production stories. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the two films and on screenwriter Diane Thomas before publishing, and each question carries the sentence that establishes it. If you think one is wrong, use the report button and we will look again.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who directed Romancing the Stone?
Robert Zemeckis
He was hired for his association with Spielberg, and the film's success let him make his 1985 time-travel hit.
Q 02What is Joan's profession?
Romance novelist
She writes her next bestseller about the adventure and returns home to find Jack waiting in a sailboat.
Q 03What is the name of Joan's cat?
Romeo
Jack later names his boat after the heroine of Joan's novels.
Q 04Which Colombian city is Joan told to bring the map to as her sister's ransom?
Cartagena
Colonel Zolo diverts her onto a bus into the interior instead.
Q 05What does Jack T. Colton smuggle for a living?
Exotic birds
His Land Rover is wrecked when Joan's bus crashes into it, which is how the pair meet.
Q 06How much does Joan promise Jack, in traveler's cheques, to get her out of the jungle to a telephone?
$375
He later suggests they find the treasure themselves before handing over the map.
Q 07What is the name of the drug lord who turns out to be a fan of Joan's novels?
Juan
Alfonso Arau's character helps them escape Zolo's soldiers.
Q 08What is the treasure at the heart of Romancing the Stone?
An enormous emerald called El Corazón
Michael Douglas later named his production company El Corazon Productions after it.
Q 09What happens to Zolo's hand at the climax?
A crocodile bites it off
The crocodile swallows the emerald along with the hand, and Jack dives in after it.
Q 10What are Jack's boots made from when he shows up in New York at the end?
Crocodile skin
He jokes that the crocodile got a fatal case of indigestion from the emerald.
Q 11What is the name of Jack's sailboat in the final scene?
Angelina
He bought the boat of his dreams with the money from selling the emerald.
Q 12Who wrote the Romancing the Stone screenplay?
Diane Thomas
It was her only produced screenplay; she died in a car crash a year and a half after the release.
Q 13What was the screenwriter's job while she wrote the script in 1978?
Cocktail waitress
She worked at the Coral Beach Cantina on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu.
Q 14Which studio first bought the script in 1979, before Douglas's contract there expired in 1983?
Q 21On which river was the whitewater scene where Jack and Joan are separated filmed?
The Rio Antigua
It was shot near Jalcomulco in Veracruz.
Q 22Which 1984 rival did Fox push the filmmakers to beat to theatres?
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Time magazine still called the finished film "a distaff Raiders rip-off".
Q 23Which film fired Zemeckis as director after its producers saw a rough cut of Romancing the Stone?
Cocoon
Studio insiders expected the film to flop; it became Fox's only big hit of 1984.
Columbia Pictures
Fox picked it up after the success of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Q 15At her death, screenwriter Diane Thomas had drafted which project, set in a haunted mansion?
The third Indiana Jones movie
Spielberg had personally hired her to write for Amblin; Lucas and Spielberg later took the film in a different direction.
Q 16What kind of car was the screenwriter driving when she died on the Pacific Coast Highway in October 1985?
A Porsche Carrera
The car spun on the rain-slick road at about 80 mph and hit a telephone pole near Topanga.
Q 17Which two stars declined the role of Jack Colton while the film was at Columbia?
Burt Reynolds and Clint Eastwood
Stallone, Newman and Christopher Reeve were also considered before Douglas hired himself.
Q 18Who was the studio's top choice to play Joan before Kathleen Turner?
Debra Winger
Many male stars were put off that Joan, not Jack, was the protagonist.
Q 19What arrangement did Michael Douglas set up with 20th Century Fox to make the film?
A negative pick-up
His company financed the film independently and the studio bought it once it was finished.
Q 20In which country was most of Romancing the Stone filmed?
Mexico
Locations included Veracruz, Xalapa and Huasca de Ocampo, with the opening scene shot in St. George, Utah.
Q 24Which later Zemeckis film did he say Romancing the Stone's success allowed him to make?
Back to the Future
He would cast Kathleen Turner again as the voice of Jessica Rabbit in 1988.
Q 25Roughly how much did Romancing the Stone gross worldwide?
$115 million
That made it the sixth-highest-grossing film of 1984.
Q 26Which two Golden Globes did Romancing the Stone win?
Best Musical or Comedy and Best Actress for Turner
Its only Academy Award nomination was for Best Film Editing.
Q 27Who composed the score for Romancing the Stone, beginning a long partnership with Zemeckis?
Alan Silvestri
He went on to score Forrest Gump and the Zemeckis time-travel trilogy.
Q 28What did Kathleen Turner sue the filmmakers to pay for after production wrapped?
Plastic surgery for on-set injuries
She also recalled terrible arguments with Zemeckis about his camera setups.
Q 29Under what pen name were the novelisations of both films credited?
Joan Wilder
Catherine Lanigan actually ghostwrote both books.
Q 30Which US president watched Romancing the Stone at Camp David in May 1984?
Ronald Reagan
Roger Ebert called it "a silly, high-spirited chase picture" and enjoyed it.