Beyond the Sea (film) included Johnny Depp as Bobby Darin, Drew Barrymore as Sandra Dee, Bette Midler as Darin's birth mother Nina and Bruno Kirby as Nina's husband/Darin's right-hand man, Charlie Mafia. Levinson eventually vacated the director's position in favor of "Liberty Heights" (1999); because he was unable to get "Dreamer" into production, Warner Bros. lost the music licensing rights, which reverted to the Darin estate. In March 1999, Dick Clark Productions announced their teaming with Dodd Darin on a biopic, with collaboration from producer Arthur Friedman, who had been developing both "The Bobby Darin Story" and "Dreamer" with Levinson at Warner Bros. since
Beyond the Sea (film) came from foreign production companies, Spacey performed six songs at the November 2003 American Film Market. Lions Gate Entertainment quickly picked up the distribution duties and Spacey found enough investors from England and Germany to continue to move forward on production. In addition, Spacey declined to be paid for his work as actor, director, co-writer and producer on "Beyond the Sea". A portion of the $25 million budget came from his own Trigger Street Productions. Producer Arthur Friedman, who had shepherded the biopic since 1987, commented that he and Spacey experienced creative differences during pre-production. Friedman remarked that he was