Phil Spector movie maker `urged to stick to the facts`

Mamet has openly said that he believes Spector is innocent of the 2003 shooting, and told the Financial Times, 'I don't think he's guilty. I definitely think there is reasonable doubt.

'They should never have sent him away. Whether he did it or not, we'll never know but if he'd just been a regular citizen, they never would have indicted him.'

But a group of friends of Clarkson are worried about how she will now be portrayed in the film. They have written to Mamet, urging him not to be 'a valentine' to 'a convicted murderer and 40-year gun abuser'.

The late star's publicist and long-time friend, Edward Lozzi, told City News Service, 'This project is so wrong and so insensitive in so many ways to the people who knew and loved Lana Clarkson.

'We are requesting that Mr Mamet have the good sense and courtesy to write a factual and entertaining film concerning the facts. He does not need to rewrite history so soon. It will backfire on him.''

Spector, 71, was convicted of second degree murder in April 2009 after a second trial and sentenced to 19 years to life in prison. He maintains that Clarkson shot herself in the foyer of his Alhambra home.

In the as-yet untitled film, Spector is to be played by Al Pacino, with Bette Midler as Linda Kenney Baden, the former music producer's lawyer in the first murder trial, which resulted in a hung jury.