At the time the screenplay was called Slide and the two men had a deal to make it at MGM with Walsh as producer and Steve McQueen in the starring role.[4] However, the studio began making unrealistic demands, like having the script be an exact number of pages (in a movie script, 1 page = 1 minute), and wanting the whole story to be set at the Circus Circus casino in Las Vegas because MGM owned it.[5]