From listening to older family talk, when you're on a party line and you hear someone else talking you're actually supposed to cover the receiver with your hand and eavesdrop.
I found some other articles at the time that mention Coppola was interested in being an executive producer, not in directing it. Likewise for all the other directors their attachment is never actually confirmed to be as a director.
The friend who often bails on plans at the last minute has basically told another friend to stay home, because they have a cough, so if he follows his usual pattern of behavior it's looking likely that only one person will show up for what was going to be the Christmas gift exchange. I might...
I don't see anything about Lorraine Williams being involved, but there's an interview from 2000 where Solomon claims Coppola was interested in it for a while before bailing and James Cameron was briefly interested before he (understandably) ditched it to make Titanic.
I'll look at it later tonight, but full disclosure: I really dislike the director facing parts of Forge Steel so it won't be hard for this to win me over.
I called my grandpa on his birthday a couple days ago, and one of my uncles started in on a "why in the hell would anyone want to live in California give me one good reason" rant and I just said "it's 70 degrees today".