Film Director: It is true that certain characters and plot twists in my newly released film The Big Heist are similar to characters and plot twists in Thieves, a movie that came out last year. Pointing to these similarities, the film studio that produced Thieves is now accusing me of taking ideas from that film. The accusation is clearly without merit. All production work on The Big Heist was actually completed months before Thieves was released. Which of the following, if true, provides the strongest support for the directors position? ['Production work on Thieves began before production work on The B/g Heist was started', 'The director of Thieves worked with the director of The Big Heist on several earlier projects', 'Before Thieves began production, its script had been circulating for several years among various film studios, including the studio that produced The Big Heist.', 'The characters and plot twists that are most similar in the two films have close parallels in many earlier films of the same genre.']