waiting tables when he came in to contact with Julie Richardson, whom he had met on a UCLA Screenwriting Extension course. Richardson had become a producer and was searching for projects for Frank Darabont, Rob Fried and Chuck Russell's company, Edge City, which was created to make low budget genre movies for HBO. Beattie later pitched her his idea of "The Last Domino." Richardson pitched the idea to Darabont, who brought the team in for a meeting, including Beattie, and set up the project under Edge City. After two drafts, HBO passed on the project. At a general meeting at DreamWorks with executive Marc Haimes, Beattie mentioned the script. Haimes immediately contacted Richardson, read the script overnight, and DreamWorks put in an offer the following day. Early drafts of Collaterals script set the film in New York City. Later revisions of the script moved the film's setting to Los Angeles. Darabont, Fried and Russell would remain on as executive producers. Pre-production Mimi Leder and cinematographer Janusz Kamiński were attached to the project at one point as the director. Brazilian filmmaker Fernando Meirelles had initially agreed to direct, but eventually decided to exit as the production would require him to relocate to Los Angeles for eight months. Meirelles described his vision for the film as being that of a comedy, and looked at telling it in a way similar to Martin Scorsese's After Hours. Upon Russell Crowe expressing interest in playing the role of Vincent, development on the film moved forward. Crowe got his The Insider director Michael Mann involved, but after constant delays, Crowe departed the project. Mann then approached Tom Cruise with the idea of him playing Vincent and Adam Sandler in the role of Max. Sandler later dropped out due to scheduling conflicts with Spanglish and was replaced by Jamie Foxx. Beattie wanted the studio to cast Robert De Niro as Max, once again making him a taxi driver, though the exact opposite of Travis Bickle. The studio refused, insisting on a younger actor for the role. Cuba Gooding Jr. revealed in a 2018 interview he had turned down a part in the film due to concerns he would be miscast. Mann's reasons for casting Foxx, with whom he worked with on Ali, was that he held a similar quality in his performances to Cruise. "I saw that [quality of Tom’s] in Jamie on In Living Color —