This story was inspired by a remark of Mark Twain's to the effect that it was a pity that the best part of life came at the beginning and the worst part at the end. By trying the experiment upon only one man in a perfectly normal world Fitzgerald has scarcely given his idea a fair trial. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was released as a motion picture late in 2008 starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett but the screenplay differs greatly from this story.