While Wenders was preparing "Alice in the Cities", a friend took him to see Peter Bogdanovich's new film, "Paper Moon". To his horror, the film appeared to be very similar to the one he was making, prompting him to call his production office and break the news that he was canceling the project, believing the film that they were going to shoot "had already been made". Soon after, Wenders went to Samuel Fuller, who had invited him to come visit after a prior encounter in Germany. Wenders mentioned to Fuller that he had just cancelled a project, and upon finding out that Wenders had already secured the financing for the film, he convinced Wenders that it was a mistake. After a few hours of discussion, Wenders realized he could still proceed, albeit with some extensive rewrites to differentiate "Alice in the Cities" from "Paper Moon", and he called his production office to tell them that the film was back on.