(Wine-Searcher) - With the 40th anniversary of the Judgment of Paris occurring next year, a movie is in the works. Again.

After 10 years, threats of lawsuits and some rancorous exchanges between rival movie moguls, the "definitive" film version of the legendary Paris tasting is finally going to be made.

With a $12m budget and a director signed up, writer Robert Kamen and wine critic Steven Spurrier are confident that the cameras will start rolling on a film they began work on in late 2006 about the legendary 1976 tasting in which California wines were voted superior to Bordeaux first growths.

Kamen – writer of the Taken trilogy, The Karate Kid series and other blockbusters, and now a highly respected wine producer and grower in the Moon Mountain District AVA in Sonoma – told Wine-Searcher they will hire a casting director in the New Year and start "a serious look for actors".

As to who would play Spurrier, Kamen said he had no idea as yet. Over the years various actors have been suggested for the role, including Hugh Grant and Thor star Tom Hiddleston. "What I do know is that it will have to be someone blindingly good looking, or Steven will have a fit," Kamen said.

Director Andy Tennant, whose filmography includes Hitch (with Will Smith) and Sweet Home Alabama (with Reese Witherspoon) among others, is expected to begin filming by next summer.

It is essential to start by then, because "we need grapes on the vines", Kamen said. It is not as yet decided whether the bulk of the filming will take place in France or in California. Kamen said it is important to find vineyards that "look like Napa in the '70s".

Funding for the film, which Kamen is co-producing with Florida businessman Jonathan Rotella, comes from a handful of private investors. These include Piero Antinori, who bought Stag's Leap Wine Cellars in a joint venture with Washington State's Chateau Ste Michelle in 2007, and Mike Grgich, whose office confirmed he had backed the film. Wine-Searcher understands he put up $1.5m, although Grgich's spokesman would not confirm this.

The script concentrates on a handful of characters: the architect of the 1976 Paris tasting, Steven Spurrier, his wife Bella, Warren Winiarski and his wife Barbara, and Mike Grgich. It was Winiarski's 1973 Stag's Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon that was marked superior to Château Mouton-Rothschild 1970, Château Haut Brion 1970 and Château Montrose 1970 by a majority of tasters.