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,
Kevin Spacey appeared in several tribute concerts around the time of the film's release. He received mostly positive reviews for his singing, as well as a Golden Globe nomination for his performance. However, reviewers criticized the age disparity between Spacey and Darin, noting that Spacey was too old to convincingly portray Darin, particularly during the early stages of the singer's life depicted in the film. Spacey hosted "Saturday Night Live" twice: first in 1997 with musical guest Beck and special guests Michael Palin and John Cleese from "Monty Python's Flying Circus" and again in May 2006 with musical guest Nelly Furtado. In