Plot: When Orson Welles moved to Hollywood, the 24 year old was hailed as the boy genius and everyone eagerly anticipated his first film for RKO Studios. Welles had made a name for himself on the New York stage and in radio dramatizations, particularly his adaptation of H.G. Wells War of the Worlds. He was given carte blanche by RKO studio head George Schaefer but he took his time and after a year, still had not come up with an idea. After having dinner at San Simeon, William Randolph Hearst's castle-like mansion, he comes up with the idea of a film on the life of a larger-than-life American whose style and foibles defined much of American entrepreneurship. Working with his good friend Herman J. Mankiewicz they develop a script for what would become Citizen Kane (1941). However, when Hearst becomes aware of the film, he instructs his newspapers' Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper to go to any lengths to stop it from being released.
Alternative Plot: Orson Welles (Liev Schreiber), all charisma and stubborn vision, is signed to direct films for RKO Pictures with a startling amount of creative freedom. Welles decides to make production number 281 a disguised biopic of media tycoon William Randolph Hearst (James Cromwell), a film which would come to be known as "Citizen Kane." But Welles doesn't understand just how much clout Hearst yields. When he gets word of the unflattering production, Hearst does everything in his power to stop it.
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