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) rights all wrongs. Doing his own singing (an uncanny imitation), Spacey is a marvel." The film opened in limited release in the United States on December 17, 2004 and went into wider release on December 29. It grossed $6,318,709 in the US and $2,128,906 in international markets for a total worldwide box office of $8,447,615. It was declared a box office bomb because it did not make back its $25 million budget. Spacey was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy but lost to Jamie Foxx for "Ray". He and Phil Ramone