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When Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski were developing the film, it was always their intention to show the story from Margaret Keane’s point-of-view. This was partly why they were able to get Margaret’s authorization for the film, but it was also a perspective that has received surprisingly little exposure. Both writers note that many people still believe Walter is the actual artist behind the paintings simply because Margaret’s revelation came at a time when the paintings were no longer popular with the general public.

Few people would describe the film’s depiction of Walter restrained, but both writers as well as Margaret note that Walter’s real life behavior was even more outrageous. When referring to the original court transcripts of Margaret’s case against Walter, they note that Walter consistently tested the boundaries of the court’s patience, calling in strange character witnesses and nearly getting muzzled himself due to his outlandish behavior. (At one point Walter even called in Wayne Newton as a witness. After the trial was over, Newton flew back to Hawaii at his own expense to personally apologize to Margaret Keane.) Many of these details were left out of the film because it was felt that it would’ve been too over-the-top, even though those details were actually factual.

The film suggests that Walter Keane arguably pioneered commercial reproduction in contemporary art. Alexander says that Walter Keane “wasn’t selling that many expensive paintings, so he figured out how to make them cheap, so cheap that they were basically posters that could be sold anywhere.” This is seen in the film when Walter sees numerous people taking his gallery’s free posters rather than buying the actual paintings, which were more than most people could afford. Even after charging the posters for a dime, the demand was insatiable, inspiring Walter to find other cheap ways of replicating the artwork to sell them to the masses.

Karaszewski argues that Walter also “invented the mass-marketing of art. He was the guy who, because he wasn’t accepted in art circles, did that end run…He realized that art critics didn’t matter—celebrities did. You don’t need the Times when you have Joan Crawford going on The Tonight Show, saying, ‘I met the most fabulous painter the other day.’” As seen in the film, Walter Keane took every opportunity he could to present celebrities with a Keane painting, mainly as a marketing device that would also be publicized by the local gossip column Dick Nolan.

Karaszewski and Alexander also suggest that his brilliance at marketing has never been recognized simply because it was completely overshadowed by his fraudulent behavior.