Gone with the Wind (film) time on the night of December 10, 1938, when the burning of Atlanta was filmed. In a letter to his wife two days later, Selznick admitted that Leigh was "the Scarlett dark horse", and after a series of screen tests, her casting was announced on January 13, 1939. Just before the shooting of the film, Selznick informed newspaper columnist Ed Sullivan: "Scarlett O'Hara's parents were French and Irish. Identically, Miss Leigh's parents are French and Irish." Of original screenplay writer Sidney Howard, film historian Joanne Yeck writes, "reducing the intricacies of "Gone with the Wind"'s epic dimensions was a herculean
The Wind Done Gone builders, "Twelve Slaves Strong as Trees". The estate of Margaret Mitchell sued Randall and her publishing company, Houghton Mifflin, on the grounds that "The Wind Done Gone" was too similar to "Gone with the Wind", thus infringing its copyright. The case attracted numerous comments from leading scholars, authors, and activists, regarding what Mitchell's attitudes would have been and how much "The Wind Done Gone" copies from its predecessor. After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit vacated an injunction against publishing the book in "Suntrust v. Houghton Mifflin" (2001), the case was settled in 2002 when Houghton Mifflin