The new movie Miami Vice has raised some controversy, and despite all the concerns the trailer makes it look a superbly dark and exciting thriller, much in the style of Collateral. Now the film is coming to release the stories of the troubled production are being confirmed.

Through Newsvine comes the Slate story about the up and down production of the film.

The movie wound up going over schedule and dramatically over budget, with the final tally rumored to be more than $150 million. The studio says the number is actually $135 million.

The story carries some quotes from Michael Mann and the crew themselves about the production.

Foxx ended up leaving in the middle of production, after a shooting (and we don't mean the kind with a camera) took place during filming in the Dominican Republic. Foxx refused to return for any more work outside the United States, meaning that Mann had to rewrite the ending, eliminating a version that was to have been shot in Paraguay.

A bit too much of that oscar glory perhaps? A thought that is confirmed by those on set...

...after signing for the film, Foxx won the Oscar for his performance in Ray. He was a bigger star than before, and according to members of the production team, he showed up with an entourage and something of an attitude.

According to the story, and note that this part comes from an unconfirmed source, Foxx arrived with a big entourage, and refused to fly commercial to the Dominican Republic set. Then there was a wrangling over the pay each was receiving. Foxx was being paid less than Farrell, a point that was soon rectified with Farrell receiving a cut and Foxx a nice raise. A member of the crew said...

"Jamie is more of a diva in the sense that he was afraid of boats, afraid of planes-there were a lot of things where he was afraid for himself. Colin will do anything."

Now isn't that the turnaround? According to previous movies I've heard that Colin may play hard but always manages to pull it out of the bag for the day's performance. However there's not been so many reports about Foxx behaving badly.

Things seemed to have been made more complicated on set by Mann reportedly writing the script as he went, changing things again and again. Then there were tropical storms that hit the set, during one scene of filming the storm was so bad it blew windows out across the open top car the two stars were driving. Shame.

Mann admits that the on set shooting between the security staff was pretty scary, and it seems to be something that Foxx agreed with.

"Jamie basically changed the whole movie in one stroke," a crew member says-and not, in his opinion, for the better. The ending that was supposed to be shot in Paraguay would have been "much more dramatic."

Yet Mann stays quiet about the incident and says little. However it doesn't seem as much of a blow as one would think. Yes Foxx wouldn't return and forced the filming of the ending to resume inside the US, but Mann had gone through different options of where the ending would take place.

Mann had written an ending set in Miami but then decided to go to Paraguay, then to remain in Miami, and then again to film in Paraguay. Now he went back to the Miami ending. "It was like turning an oil tanker around on a dime," he says. "But the Miami ending worked out to be the better ending. It brought all the conflicting characters together in one arena."

Well, if you've reached this far, and maybe even read the story from Slate, you'll realise that the production sounds a complete mess. Almost a miracle that a workable film came through from it. However it has, despite the price tag, and it looks good. We only really have the trailer to go by, but that is saying "so what!" to all the stories above.

I'll reserve judgement for the finished article at the end, and if it's even just decent, you'll have to tip your hat to Mann for the excellent job in pulling it all together. I think, if anything, this raises more questions about Foxx than anyone else.