Mitchelson rewriting screenplay about Spector

Celebrity divorce lawyer Marvin Mitchelson is having to rewrite the ending of the screenplay for the film he is producing about his friend, record producer Phil Spector.

Mitchelson, who pioneered the “palimony” lawsuit and whose legal clients included Bianca Jagger and Joan Collins, had intended to make the Spector film “Wall of Sound” one of the first productions of his newly-formed film company.

The last scene of the film was to have shown Spector returning in triumph with a new band to London’s Abbey Road studios, where he once produced record tracks for the Beatles.

But since Spector’s arrest last month on suspicion of murdering actress Lana Clarkson at his Los Angeles home, the project is undergoing changes.

“The last scene was to have been the happy ending with the great comeback,” says Mitchelson. “Now I don’t know how it is all going to end.”

Mitchelson took over the project after Tom Cruise and writer-director Cameron Crowe worked on it but could not figure how to bring the story to a satisfying conclusion.

“Phil wasn’t all that pleased with what Tom and Cameron had done,” Mitchelson told the New York Times. “So he and I started talking about ways to revive it and we really thought we’d come up with a terrific way to end it - until what happened at Phil’s house.”