Epps returned to California and on his own contributed the story for and produced the TV-movie "Off Sides" (NBC, 1984). It took a couple of years before the Epps and Cash partnership finally made it to the big screen with the fighter pilot tale "Top Gun" (1986), a film that confirmed Tom Cruise's status as a box-office star. That same year, "Legal Eagles", a tepid courtroom romance between Robert Redford and Debra Winger that got lost in the translation, also appeared. Epps and Cash wrote Michael J Fox's follow-up to his "Back to the Future" movies, "The Secret of My Success" (1987), and the "buddy" picture "Turner & Hooch" (1989), in which Tom Hanks, in a period of his career he perhaps would sooner forget, was teamed with a drooling bulldog to solve a crime. Epps and Cash were credited with adapting "Dick Tracy" (1990) for Warren Beatty. Years of drought then brought "Anaconda" (1997), a tale of a documentary crew in the jungle terrorized by a snake. Epps and Cash were among the five credited writers on the project.
The pair also entered into a producing deal and (as of 1997) have several projects in development.