MIDEAST DRAMA? Hollywood, Palestinian Authority (inset)
Are Arab tycoons controlling what movies get made for American audiences? Maybe not, but one big-name producer was happy enough to give that impression—until his words became public.

Mark Gill, former president of Warner Independent Pictures, blamed his decision not to produce a Syriana-like terrorism flick on his backers—a Saudi sheikh and a financier with ties to the Palestinian Liberation Organization—says the screenwriter for the film.

Jason Ressler first showed his script for Dove Hunting to Gill, now CEO of the Film Department, in December 2006. Citing extensive e-mail correspondence, he says Gill showed strong interest in the project up until May 2007, when he suddenly ceased his discussions with Ressler. The following month, the Film Department announced it had secured $200 million in financing from backers including General Electric, Zeid Masri and Sheikh Waleed bin Ibrahim. Masri's company, Silverhaze Partners, has been accused of investing PLO money through front companies; Sheikh Waleed is chairman of the Middle East Broadcasting Center.

When screenwriter Ressler found out about the financing deal, he e-mailed Gill, telling him he assumed the Film Department's new backers would not want to see Dove Hunting made. "You are one perceptive guy," Gill wrote on June 28, 2007, according to a copy of the message that Ressler retained. Gill then confirmed the project was dead.

As the story drew attention from Cindy Adams and The Forward, however, Gill appeared to backpedal, denying, via a spokeswoman, that he had ever said such a thing, and having lawyers send a cease-and-desist letter not only to Ressler, but also to a reporter working on a story about the affair, and a letter warning Radar of its potential legal liability.

Gill declined to comment to Radar, but sources close to Gill say that his response was an ill-advised attempt to let Ressler down easy. Gill, says the source, never had a serious intention to make the picture, and was careful to avoid making a commitment. "He just wanted to be done and get Ressler off of his back. He just didn't want to deal with him anymore."

For his part, Ressler insists that Gill was serious about making Dove Hunting—right up until he started taking money from people who might be opposed to its political message.

"Of course he's going to say he didn't like the script, but I have five months of documentation that shows otherwise," Ressler says. "There's no way a producer who didn't care about the script and wasn't thinking about producing this would ask me to make changes with that level of detail."