In a case of life imitating art, director Fernando Kalife ended up pursuing the band U2 for months after shooting in order to get permission to use their music and concert footage. In an interview on KCRW's "The Business" (August 13, 2007), Kalife spoke about how he started shooting the film without any permissions. During filming, lawyers told him that there were over 300 distinct elements that would require U2's clearance. He tried unsuccessfully to use every available contact to reach the band and finished the film without any clearances, shooting two versions of key scenes in Tony's car, with and without the U2 dolls and with a different end song that wasn't from U2. Several months after closing the picture he got a surprise cell phone call from actor Jaime Camil ("Tony") who lives in Acapulco saying that Bono was in his house watching a subtitled cut of the movie. It turns out that Bono's Private plane was flying to Baja while on hiatus from the Vertigo tour and had to divert to Acapulco due to bad weather. Camil found out that Bono was in Acapulco and enlisted the assistance of model Naomi Campbell to help him meet Bono for lunch. He told Bono about the movie and Bono asked to see the film. This is when he called Kalife with the news. After watching the film, Bono called back and Kalife asked to use music and concert footage. Bono told Kalife that Larry Mullen Jr. (U2 drummer and band founder) would have to give his permission first. Kalife worked with Mullen over several months to select and edit footage for the film with U2 eventually giving him the rights to use their footage and song for free.
