Midler would eventually drop out, a decision she would come to regret, noting, “ Sister Act…was written for me, but I said: ‘My fans don’t want to see me in a wimple.’ I don’t know where I got that from. But the writing process dragged on for over a year, with Rudnick, Midler and Disney execs struggling to find a way to approach the material, and Midler increasingly uneasy about the project. Bette Midler quickly signed on, and the film was set up at Disney, where she had her own production company. Rudnick’s treatment soon found its way to the singer and actress, who’d had box-office success with films like Outrageous Fortune and Ruthless People. It would be pop versus Pope and pop, in a barrage of sequins, wisecracks, and Marlboro Lights, would win.” Bette Midler was originally set to star in 'Sister Act'

As he would later write, “I wanted our heroine…to embody raunch, sex, and the unstoppable gospel of cheap showbiz. His film would turn those sweet-natured tropes on their head by featuring a struggling showgirl as its lead. Writer Paul Rudnick, who’d had modest success as a playwright and screenwriter, began working on the script in the late 1980s, intrigued by the idea of setting a comedy in the world of a religious order and satirizing popular Hollywood films like The Sound of Music, The Singing Nun and The Song of Bernadette. Here are 10 facts you may not know about the musical-comedy film series: The first film’s screenwriter was partially inspired by previous Hollywood films about nuns Following the success of the first movie, Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, also starring Lauryn Hill, hit theaters in December 1993. Despite a rocky road to the screen, the film was an instant hit, as audiences warmed to Goldberg’s on-screen comradery with co-stars Kathy Najimy, Maggie Smith, Kathy Najimy and Wendy Makkena, powered by a soundtrack that spent more than a year on the Billboard charts. Released in the summer of 1992, Sister Act starred actress-comedian Whoopi Goldberg as struggling nightclub performer Deloris Van Cartier, who is forced into hiding after witnessing her gangster boyfriend committing murder and poses as nun Sister Mary Clarence while staying at a San Francisco convent.

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