David, very interesting piece. one thing, though — your narrative on how the movie got to be a movie has some missing pieces. As Harold will confirm — and it was actually in the original press materials for the film — this movie got started when the guys from Rhino, who I was friendly with, read my Phillymag piece. they asked for a free option on it and offered me the opportunity to write the first draft of the screenplay. (I was also the music critic at GQ during that time, and wrote pieces both on Rhino and the law firm that had helped one of the widows go after her rights. And Rhino wanted this to be the first film in a planned new film division; before, I believe, their deal with warner.) I was working on other things at the time, and had never written a screenplay, so I passed on the opportunity and they eventually hired a writer who I guess claimed they looked at the original material on which my piece was based, but that piece was the first one to bring together all the legal documents. many of the things you are describing here actually came later. since the movie bombed nobody has been all that interested in the actual timeline. the piece was a lot of fun to do, and I met a lot of fascinating characters.