Back in 1997, Garrett was set to portray Gleason in a television biopic for CBS, with the script written by Everybody Loves Raymond creator Philip Rosenthal, but it never came to fruition.
[3] When he learned that CBS acquired the rights to Gleason's life story, Garrett personally lobbied to the network to portray the role.
[3][4] Garrett reportedly disapproved of the script written by Rick Podell and Michael Preminger.
With assistance from Deutch, Garrett and his writer friend Dave Boone wrote an uncredited rewrite of the script.
Deutch was nominated for the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Miniseries or TV Film.