orion pictures had bought daley's book for $500,000 in 1978. daley was a former new york deputy police commissioner for public affairs who wrote about robert leuci, an nypd detective whose testimony and secret tape recordings helped indict 52 members of the special investigation unit and convict them of income tax evasion. originally, brian de palma was going to direct with david rabe adapting the book and robert de niro playing leuci but the project fell through. sidney lumet came aboard to direct under two conditions: he did not want a big name movie star playing leuci because he did not "want to spend two reels getting over past associations," and the movie's running time would be at least three hours long.