The Race to Get ‘Lethal Lolita’ Case on TV : Television: ABC and CBS pick the same night to show competing movies about Amy Fisher’s shooting of Mary Jo Buttafuoco. NBC plans to offer its version first.

For the most part, Joey and Mary Jo Buttafuoco seemed to be having a great time putting their sordid past in front of them.

The Massapequa, N.Y., couple, who gained notoriety in the “Lethal Lolita” case this year that erupted when 18-year-old Amy Fisher shot Mary Jo Buttafuoco in the head after an alleged affair with her husband, traveled to Culver City recently to relive their ordeal during the filming of the CBS movie “Casualties of Love: The ‘Long Island Lolita’ Story.”

Being around a frantic movie set on a residential street didn’t seem to faze the couple in the least. They hugged and praised writer-director-producer John Herzfeld. They joked with their dramatic counterparts, Jack Scalia and Phyllis Lyons. They chatted comfortably with reporters from “Entertainment Tonight” and E! Entertainment Television.

But emotion seemed to overwhelm the couple during a re-enactment of a heated argument just after the wounded Mary Jo Buttafuoco, who still has a bullet in her head, returns to her home, which is surrounded by reporters. She is resentful of the attention and bitter about Joey’s alleged involvement with Fisher.

In the scene, Lyons wore a shabby house coat and shorts with heavy makeup that turned her face into a disfigured, swollen twist. “I have a bullet in my head!” she screamed, pounding Scalia’s chest. “I can’t take any more of this! I’ve had it with the press, I’ve had it with the movie people, and I’ve had it with you! You’re my husband and you’re supposed to be protecting me!”

The real Joey Buttafuoco tried to film a rehearsal of the scene with his own video camera, but stopped halfway through to wipe something from his eye. Sitting close by, Mary Jo Buttafuoco looked simultaneously enthralled and moved at the actions of the woman playing her. She smiled when her husband called across the room, “Hey, babe, they forgot the part where I said, ‘But I’m not the one who shot you, baby.’ ”

Later, the couple sat together, holding hands. Joey Buttafuoco gazed admiringly at the actors and said: “He’s so intense. Jack has me down . I don’t know how those two can play someone they don’t know.”

At the same moment the Buttafuocos were watching Scalia and Lyons, four other actors in Vancouver and Toronto who also didn’t know the Buttafuocos were portraying them in two additional network television movies.

In ABC’s “The Amy Fisher Story,” the couple is played by Anthony John Denison and Laurie Paton. In NBC’s “Amy Fisher: My Story,” Ed Marinaro and Kathleen Laskey were doing the honors.

The three films are the focal point of an unprecedented television event in which three different networks are simultaneously making movies about the same subject--and, as of Monday, two of them were planning to show their films at the same hour on Jan. 3. All three started shooting on Nov. 23 and had accelerated pre-production and post-production schedules in a race to get them on the air.

At one point all three were scheduled to be on during the same week in late January. But ABC postponed its broadcast, and last week NBC moved its telecast date to next Monday. On Monday, both ABC and CBS announced they would broadcast their films on Jan. 3 from 9 to 11 p.m.

“It looks great in its rough cut, and we felt no reason to hold it back longer,” explained Ruth Slawson, NBC’s senior vice president for movies and miniseries. “And we obviously would like to be on the air first. We feel that Amy’s story is the one that will catch people’s eyes.”

The uniqueness of the Fisher case justifies three different movies, the producers said, because what really happened is still a mystery and may never be known.

Fisher was sentenced Dec. 1 to five-to-15 years in prison for shooting Buttafuoco after pleading guilty to assault. She was originally charged with second-degree attempted murder. The Long Island teen insisted to the end that she had had an affair with Joey Buttafuoco and that he had encouraged her violent actions. It was also revealed that she had worked as a prostitute.

Joey Buttafuoco has denied having an affair with Fisher, saying he only knew her from when she brought her car numerous times to his auto repair shop. Mary Jo Buttafuoco still has the bullet that Fisher fired in her skull. Her mouth is lopsided, and she is recovering from partial paralysis in her face.

Each movie will take a different point of view.

* NBC’s “Amy Fisher: My Story” will offer Fisher’s side of the story. “From beginning to end, this will be Amy’s vision of what happened,” said executive producer Michael Jaffe, who obtained the rights to her story from another production company. “It’s clear that Joey’s version does not agree with that. We don’t claim that our movie is fact, only that it’s Amy’s point of view.”

He added that his Fisher (Noelle Parker) will not come off as a victim. “I don’t condone anything Amy did,” he said. “But I guarantee that if every fact of this case were known, if her entire history was known, people would understand why it’s possible to have compassion for her.” He also said that Fisher would receive no money from the film.

* The CBS film, which features former “Who’s the Boss?” ingenue Alyssa Milano as Fisher, will focus on the Buttafuocos and their life several years before the shooting, when Joey Buttafuoco was a drug addict. Although the couple sold the rights to their story in a deal worth an estimated $1 million, the movie “will not be a cakewalk for Joey,” said Herzfeld. The screenplay is based on 5,000 pages of interviews with other participants.

“Do I think Joey Buttafuoco had an affair with Amy Fisher?” Herzfeld said. “Yes, but he’ll take the truth to his grave. However, I will get the truth about everything else.”

* ABC’s “The Amy Fisher Story” is based mostly on the media coverage of the case. Executive producer Andrew Adelson said New York Post reporter Amy Pagnozzi, who covered the story, was hired as a consultant and is portrayed in the movie by Harley Jane Kozak.

“We’ll deal with how it was reported and tried on TV and in the tabloids,” said Adelson. “What the viewer will come away with is that we’ll never know what really happened because it never went to trial.” While lacking in rights to any participants’ story, the production boasts the most well-known Fisher--Drew Barrymore.

Each of the filmmakers claims that his movie is the most accurate account of the incident. They also insist that they don’t care what the others are doing, even though Jaffe and Adelson fear that all the films will be lumped together and could be trashed by viewers and, more important, critics.

“I think the critics will be waiting for all these movies with knifes and forks and daggers--and they may not be wrong in coming after them,” said Herzfeld. “After all, there’s a lot of money being spent on one single .22-caliber bullet. The whole idea of television docudramas will be scrutinized more closely when these films come on.”

But Jaffe believes the public will enjoy seeing all three movies, comparing the phenomena to “Rashomon,” the classic Akira Kurosawa film about four people involved in a rape-murder who tell divergent accounts of what happened.

“I know I’ll be watching all three movies,” he said. “This will give the public an opportunity to see a very interesting ‘Rashomon’ view of a case that has captivated the public’s imagination.”

Not to mention the public’s appetite for stories featuring sex in suburbia, youthful obsession, violence, tragedy, legal drama and reconciliation--although the filmmakers are more apt to use terms such as “an American tragedy” and “a search for justice.”

NBC executive Slawson said, “I’m not really sure why all the networks went for this. There have been other stories that are just as compelling. But there was a tremendous amount of press on this, especially since it took place on the East Coast.

“TV is interested in stories about you and me. This isn’t about organized crime, this is about ordinary people in extraordinary, extreme circumstances: ‘There but for the grace of God go I.’ Viewers will be interested in how and why something like this can happen in our society.”

The frenzy for the story by producers was frantic even by television standards. In addition to TriStar purchasing Mary Jo Buttafuoco’s story, KLM Productions put up $60,000 toward Fisher’s bail bond for the exclusive rights to her story, which were later acquired by Jaffe. NBC also bought rights from a People magazine reporter working on the story, and also paid $50,000 to Stephen Sleeman, a former friend of Fisher’s who told police Fisher tried to get him to shoot Buttafuoco.

Producer Adelson acknowledged that the pressure of rushing to complete the movies was taking a toll. “I’ve never seen this done before,” he said, “and I hope it’s never done again. Making a movie is always a great experience. But to be in competition is not quite as gratifying.”

As for the Buttafuocos, they feel there is only one real story, and that is theirs. “Amy Fisher came to my house and almost blew my head off,” said Mary Jo Buttafuoco. “I mean, what kind of story are you going to get from her? If people see this movie, they will know what really happened.”

However, when asked if he would be watching the other Amy Fisher movies, Joey Buttafuoco smiled: “Of course. Wouldn’t miss them.”