Bobby Moresco ends the phone call this way: "Please say hello to my whole crew in Pittsburgh. Tell them all I love them and thank you for helping me make a good movie."

James Marsden stars in "10th & Wolf," written and directed by Bobby Moresco and filmed in Pittsburgh. Click photo for larger image. 10th & Wolf Where: Byham Theater, Downtown When: 8 p.m. Saturday Tickets: $5 at the Byham box office two hours before showtime, in advance from the Box Office at Theater Square or (with added service charge) from www.pgharts.org or 412-456-6666. Web site: www.thinkfilmcompany.com

You got it. You don't ignore a man who was ushered into Oscar's exclusive club this year. Moresco and Paul Haggis shared the Academy Award for their original screenplay of "Crash," also crowned Best Picture of 2005.

"Pittsburgh's a great city. I'd go back there in a heartbeat. Everybody was wonderful, the crew was tremendous. I hate to sound like a Pollyanna but it was fantastic," Moresco said earlier this summer. "Unfortunately, the food's terrible. I got fat as a house, that's my only complaint. I couldn't stop eating."

Now, the movie Moresco wrote and directed, called "10th & Wolf," is coming to Pittsburgh, at least for one showing. It will play at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Byham Theater, Downtown, as part of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust's summer film series.

Executive producer and Sewickley resident Jeffrey W. Tott, whose son Jeff Jr. appears in "10th & Wolf," will introduce the film. Afterward, the public is invited to a reception (cash bar) at the Backstage Bar at Theater Square, 655 Penn Ave.

Bobby Moresco, left, and Paul Haggis share the 2005 Oscar for original screenplay for "Crash." Click photo for larger image.

"10th & Wolf" is, the movie's poster proclaims, "the intersection where family, honor and betrayal collide." Shot in Pittsburgh in fall 2004, it stars James Marsden, Giovanni Ribisi, Brad Renfro, Piper Perabo, Dennis Hopper, Lesley Ann Warren, Brian Dennehy and Val Kilmer.

The R-rated picture will open in a handful of cities Aug. 18, the same day as "Snakes on a Plane," but there is no date for a regular Pittsburgh booking. The movie could land here later or go directly to DVD on Sept. 19.

Marsden, on screen this summer in "X-Men: The Last Stand" and "Superman Returns," plays a Marine who returns home from the first Gulf War and becomes entangled in an escalating mob war. The movie was inspired by a true story involving FBI agent Joseph D. Pistone, whose book was the basis for "Donnie Brasco."

"There was a mob war in Philadelphia in 1991 that involved, for the first time, an Italian from the old country taking over an American crime family," Moresco said, and the sons and nephews of the players got involved.

"I never wanted to write a gangster movie but from that point, I found a story that I felt was worth writing about, that had to do with questioning authority, questioning loyalty, questioning the things that we're taught all of our lives."

Most of the leads in "10th & Wolf" are in their 20s or 30s, a far cry from "The Sopranos" wiseguys. "I wanted to write about people who are still young enough to challenge authority and yet not old enough to be smart enough to know what to do about it."

Born in New York in 1951 and raised in Hell's Kitchen, Moresco knows a thing or two about challenging authority and convention. He left high school after one term, did odd jobs and decided to become an actor.

"I never stopped reading. I understood if I was going to make a living in something like the arts, I better understand about it, so I spent a lot of my young life after leaving school reading the great poets and playwrights and philosophers and just reading and reading and reading, with a dictionary by my side."

He started as an actor, opened a theater company in New York and moved it to Los Angeles. A veteran stage director, he spent much of the 1990s on TV projects such as "EZ Streets," "Millennium" and "Falcone."

Moresco and Haggis were among the producers of "Million Dollar Baby" and collaborated on the "Crash" script. Now, they're working on an NBC midseason series called "The Black Donnellys," about four working-class Irish brothers who get caught up in organized crime in New York.

Although "10th & Wolf" initially was set in Eastern Pennsylvania, Moresco rewrote it to be a nondescript city, "so it wasn't either Pittsburgh or Philly, and I just rewrote it to the locations for Pittsburgh, so essentially everything is written for Pittsburgh and the movie, but I never said the word Pittsburgh."

The movie mainly takes place in the early 1990s, which sent the crew scrambling for authentic costumes and props.

"Actually, I think the most difficult thing was getting the old-fashioned cell phones, the original big, fat ones. It's really hard to find that stuff," producer Suzanne De Laurentiis said in a separate call.

Trying to assemble the cast and accommodate their tight schedules was even tougher.

"That part of it is always a horror, I can tell you. It's the hardest part of making a movie. It's one thing when you get an actor attached but good luck getting everybody available at the same time and with an ensemble cast of this size, that was the most difficult part of making '10th & Wolf,' " she said.

This marked her return to Western Pennsylvania after shooting "Out of the Black," a drama about two brothers seeking the truth about a deadly coal-mining accident, here in 2000.

"It's nice when you got back to a place the second time because you have your crew list with all your phone numbers, you have your vendor list with all the people you did business with, they're thrilled to hear you're back. It's much different from starting from scratch."

And this time, stripped across the poster is: "From the Academy Award Winning Writer of 'Crash.' "

De Laurentiis says of Moresco, "Ironically enough, he was doing 'Crash' at the same time he was in pre-production with us, so we were very familiar with 'Crash' and what was going on with that movie."

On Oscar night, De Laurentiis was sitting in the Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel and recalls, "Needless to say, when he got the Oscar, it was just like a dream come true for us. What a lucky break. Lucky for him, as well. It was just an all-around great time for everybody."