Put me down as skeptical too, but for a whole lot of other reasons.
A film can be made for a measly $3 million. But it's going to look cheap, vastly different from a Hollywood film made for $30 or $50 million. And $3 million is what the publicist obviously told Mr. McCollum. He didn't pull that figure out of the air. And I didn't see anything in the Free Press story about producers optioning or purchasing parts of other books to flesh out Peter Benjaminson's story.
How often is this is normally done and these "other Flo-book writers" are not requiring any credit?
Remember it was The Godfather based on Mario Puzo's novel, not The Godfather based on the book by Mario Puzo and a bunch of other guys who have written novels about the Mafia.