According to Variety, Steven Spielberg's upcoming film -- now to be (re)named Munich -- is generating controversy over whether it is based on a book many consider inaccurate (if not apologetic to terrorism):

The Tony Kushner script is under such a lockdown that a Mossad agent would be hard-pressed to infiltrate its cover page.

But Variety can at least reveal what that cover page starts with: "Munich." That's the official title of the film.

Though not very descriptive, Spielberg's inner circle can only hope the title might defuse the notion that the movie is based on "Vengeance," a book based on input from a purported member of the hit team. Its veracity has been widely questioned.

Once it became known that book was among the resources used by screenwriters Eric Roth and Kushner, a chorus of detractors surfaced in press stories. Before he shot a frame, Spielberg had a controversy that rivaled the one surrounding "The Passion of the Christ."

Gad Shimron, a former Mossad officer and author of "The Mossad and its Myth," echoed the sentiments of several Israeli intelligence experts contacted by Variety correspondent Marc Daugherty.

"I know the 'Vengeance' book. It's nonsense, totally baseless," Shimron says. "This sexy plot of an epic squad composed of a German, a Frenchman, an American, a Brit sounds like a bunch of clowns playing partisans behind enemy lines. It never happened that way."

The Spielberg camp maintains "Vengeance" was just one of the resources that went into telling a story they feel sticks close to the truth while taking enough dramatic license to make a compelling film.

"While people think this is based on 'Vengeance,' I'm telling you that there were also memoirs from involved parties from both sides," says Spielberg spokesman Marvin Levy. "They did tremendous research on this."

People only think this was based on Vengeance?

Where on earth might they have gotten such an idea?

The film's name, perhaps?

Why would an otherwise ho-hum web site devoted to tracking films have spent nearly a year calling the film Vengeance?

Wednesday 15th February 2005: Vengeance
Steven Spielberg plans a summer start for his postponed movie about the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. The Universal/DreamWorks project had been scheduled to film last year. Casting had begun when Spielberg decided to have "Angels in America" playwright Tony Kushner do a rewrite on the project, on which writers Eric Roth (Forrest Gump) and Charles Randolph (The Interpreter) also had worked. Universal Pictures will release the film in the USA on December 23.

Wednesday 11th August 2004: Vengeance Update:
Tony Kushner, writer of Angels in America, has been brought in to rewrite the script to Steven Spielberg's olympic drama Vengenace which has been pushed back.

Wednesday 4th August 2004: Vengeance Update:
Director Steven Spielberg has postponed his movie Vengeance which covers the successful hunt for the 17 Palestinians who attacked the Israeli Olympic team at the 1972 Munich games becuase of fears of an attack from the terrorist who was never found. Eric Bana is still set to star but the delay has meant Ben Kingsley has dropped out.

Might there be some kind of backtracking going on?

Here's Captain Ed:

It appears that Spielberg has decided to simply work from rumor and innuendo -- much more in the Oliver Stone mode than in the cinema verité of Schindler's List.

Why would Spielberg decide to focus so heavily on Israel's response instead of the terrorist attacks that initiated their actions? Exactly for the reasons given by Craig, only Spielberg doesn't intend on passing judgment merely on Israel for going after the terrorists that targeted its civilians. If these reports are accurate, he intends on passing judgment on America for going after the terrorists that targeted our civilians on 9/11. Spielberg has long opposed the Iraq War and the Bush administration for its efforts to eliminate the threat of Islamofascist terror and tyranny.

Make no mistake -- if Ross and Craig are correct, then Spielberg wants to use the murders of eleven Israeli athletes to issue an anti-Bush polemic. The film will be used as an argument for inaction and introspection instead of fighting the bloodthirsty lunatics that deliberately target and kill civilians. It will provide the ultimate in moral-relativist thinking and terrorist apologetics.

Here's IsraPundit:

Earlier I had expressed some reservations (and linked to others) about Steven Spielberg's planned movie of the Black September atrocity committed against Israel's Olympic team in Munich, 1972. As Backspin had noted the source for the movie is a discredited book. (More on this from Yossi Melman in Ha'aretz.)

Spielberg's compounded his irresponsibility by hiring Tony Kushner as his screenwriter. Crossing the Rubicon2 has gotten some disturbing sources on the ideology that Kushner is likely to write into the film.

So the movie will the result of lies colored by an extreme leftwing ideology. Not promising at all.

While it might not look promising, it's only fair too point out that the apologizers have a ferocious defender in James Wolcott, who (after pausing to share inside knowledge of Tennessee faculty lounges) comes out swinging:

The right blogosphere is a-throb over disturbing rumors concocted from the far reaches of thin air regarding Spielberg's upcoming movie about the trackdown and elimination of the terrorists who committed the massacre of Jewish athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. What has the hotheads cross-eyed with preemptive indignation?

One patriot, poring over the parchment maps in the Captain's Quarters, finds damning evidence in the words of a castmember named Daniel Craig that Spielberg intends to demonstrate that "Vengeance doesn't work." According to the Captain Crunch, working from a top-secret report in the Daily Telegraph, a consultant on the film--former Mideast envoy Dennis Ross--was so incensed by Craig's comment that he warned the Israelis what Spielberg is up to.

Yes, it's awfully arrogant of movie studios not to grant script approval to Mickey Kaus, Captain Courageous, and Little Green Footstool before they begin casting and location scouting--their creative input could be just what Hollywood needs to be saved from itself and restored to the towering glory of the Blacklist era.

Yes, that's the ultimate goal of bloggers who criticize films.

How did Wolcott know?

(Well, now that the cat's out of the bag, if others can apologize for the terrorists, maybe I should consider putting in an apology for the Blacklist Era....)

MORE: Rosemary Esmay has some thoughts about the accuracy of James Wolcott's caricature, and offers him some advice I doubt he'd take to heart.