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The cast - and the status of the 1922 original in the film firmament - means Eggers' movie had achieved a cult-like following even before its release.

An appeal for new designs produced unusual ideas, including a glass roof, a green "eco-roof", a massive flame instead of a spire, and a spire topped by a vertical laser shooting into the firmament.

“Looking at nature without fungi is like trying to diagnose a disease without doing a blood test. Fungi are the firmament of life on Earth. They make systems ecosystems.”

But in the wake of Carpenter’s hugely successful “Halloween,” Cunningham put together a bargain-basement team of mostly unknowns and directed 1980’s workmanlike “Friday the 13th,” as much in the firmament as any slasher.

With his long-standing journalistic pedigree and status in the BBC firmament, colleagues deferred to him and, editorially, he often got his way.