A war of words erupted on Monday between The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Warner Bros. over “Richard Jewell,” a new Clint Eastwood-directed film that depicts the newspaper’s reporting after a bomb exploded at the 1996 Summer Olympics.

The movie, which opens Friday and tells the story of how Richard A. Jewell, a security guard, was wrongly suspected of planting the bomb, includes the apparently fabricated detail of a reporter’s offer of sex with a federal agent in exchange for a scoop.

On Monday morning, The Journal-Constitution and its parent company, Cox Enterprises, sent the studio, Mr. Eastwood and several other figures associated with the film a letter threatening legal action unless a disclaimer in the film and a public statement by the studio acknowledged that “some events were imagined for dramatic purposes.”

“It is highly ironic that a film purporting to tell a tragic story of how the reputation of an F.B.I. suspect was grievously tarnished appears bent on a path to severely tarnish the reputation of The A.J.C.,” the letter said.