As with many landmark motion pictures, the history of The Front Runner's film development is a long one. For almost three decades, fans have demanded to know, "When are they going to make the movie?"

In 1974, when the novel spent several months on the national bestseller list, it came mightily to the attention of Hollywood. At the time, Ms. Warren lived in New York State and her agent was Paul Reynolds Associates. Hollywood was only just beginning to grapple with the provocative idea of a gay love relationship. Stories ran rampant about possible film interest in the book. Reportedly, A Different Light Bookstore in Los Angeles had a whole table full of Front Runners sitting right on the sidewalk on Santa Monica Boulevard, when Marlene Dietrich pulled up in her limousine to buy a copy.

In 1975, Paul Newman’s agent, Hugh French, negotiated a one-year option on the Front Runner film rights. The script had to come first. How would the relationship be handled? The love scenes? Two men kissing? These are still big questions for actors today -- and they were even bigger in 1975. The contract gave Ms. Warren the right to look at the screenplay, though not to approve it.

She says: "Towards the end of 1975, this script was ready. When I read it, my heart sank. It backed away from portraying a love relationship between two gay men. The poignant romance of my book was now reduced to a one-night stand before the Olympic Games. All the names, the locales had been changed. So little remained of the original story that, when I met with Newman's business partner George Englund to discuss my reaction to the script, I told him: “Why are you paying me money to call this The Front Runner? You can title it something else, and not pay me a nickel. Because this is not what I wrote.”  Time was running out on the film option, and Mr. Newman did not exercise it.

Next in line, in 1976 was Frank Perry, best known today for Mommie Dearest. In the 1970s, people identified Perry with his sensitive, offbeat film David and Lisa, about two mentally challenged teens at an institution who fall in love. Warren and her agent, John Hawkins, thought Perry would do an outstanding screen adaptation of The Front Runner. In 1976, Perry picked up his option and bought the rights in 1977. The terms were standard for the day and Ms. Warren sold the rights in perpetuity.

For the next few years, Frank Perry Films struggled to get the film made. Perry and Ms. Warren had frequent meetings while she published two other novels -- The Fancy Dancer and The Beauty Queen. John Bishop worked on the script. But it was still the Seventies, and Hollywood was still nervous about two men kissing, and the large budget, it seemed, was also a problem.

By 1979, the independent production "movement" was gathering steam. Perry sold part of his interest in The Front Runner to Howard Rosenman, Iris Sawyer and Renee Missel. Random House offered Warren a contract for a historical novel and she moved to California to begin nine years of research on One Is the Sun. In 1982, independent producer Jerry Wheeler got in touch with her through her agent. Wheeler, an openly gay man, had just obtained the Front Runner film rights from Perry, Rosenman et al.

The Front Runner spent eight years in Wheeler’s hands. Hollywood homophobia was still a problem, even with the release of Making Love in 1982. By 1990, it was clear that Wheeler's effort was going nowhere. After Wheeler’s untimely death in 1990, another producer, Mitchell Blum, formerly of Atlantic Distribution, obtained the rights from Wheeler's heir.

Times had changed by the 1990s; authors were sometimes succeeding in attaching themselves to the development of their books. By 1993, Ms. Warren was convinced that The Front Runner film rights should "come home" to her. After many years of litigation in both state and federal courts, Badeau, Blum and Ms. Warren settled out of court. In 2003, the rights were signed back to Ms. Warren in perpetuity.

This set the stage for Ms. Warren and her business partner, Tyler St. Mark, to establish Wildcat International, with a subsidiary, Wildcat Press, that is the exclusive imprint for Ms. Warren’s novels. Today, Warren and St. Mark are the producers for The Front Runner film development.

Today, with outstanding gay-themed films like Philadelphia, Gods and Monsters, Boys Don't Cry, The Hours and, most recently, Brokeback Mountain, getting Oscar nods, and the growing willingness of leading actors to accept gay roles, even the growing willingness to spend more money on gay-themed films, the obstacles to producing The Front Runner appear to be vanishing.