Beyond the Sea (film) west conducted arbitration through the scripts that had been written since Barry Levinson developed the film at Warner Bros. in 1987. Lewis Colick, James Toback and Tom Epperson disassociated themselves for credit by the WGA. The Guild justified credit to Lewis Colick, who wrote the first draft of "The Bobby Darin Story" in 1987, and Kevin Spacey. Actor-writer Jeffrey Meek believed he should have deserved credit; he was paid $85,000 of a promised $125,000 to settle his claim to have performed writing services. Spacey said Meek was "not a hired writer" on "Beyond the Sea". "He turned in a draft,
Beyond the Sea (film) Darin ever was as a singer." Stephen Holden of "The New York Times" felt that "with "Beyond the Sea", Spacey crawls back from his doomed quest to be a Tom Hanks-like everyman to his niche on the underbelly of Hollywood's pantheon. The movie's a mess, and at 45, Spacey is far too old to play Darin. Yet the star captures his desperation, his braggadocio, and yes, his magnetism." Peter Travers, writing in "Rolling Stone" magazine, believed Spacey could not prevent "the movie from groaning under the weight of biopic clichés. But the actor forges a bond with his subject that