The Santa Monica Police Department is investigating threats made against employees of the Mark Gordon Entertainment Co., which is developing a movie about former Patriots player Aaron Hernandez.

According to various West Coast websites, the threats related to a rights issue for the film about Hernandez, the onetime Pats tight end who committed suicide in prison after being convicted of murdering his friend Odin Lloyd.

Deadline.com reported that the Mark Gordon Entertainment Co. filed a restraining order petition against a man named Todd Guzze after Guzze allegedly threatened company officials over the film.

The Mark Gordon Company announced last month it is making a movie based on James Patterson’s just-released book, “All-American Murder: The Rise and Fall of Aaron Hernandez, the Superstar Whose Life Ended on Murderer’s Row.’’ According to Deadline, Guzze sent the movie company e-mails stating that two gangs, the Bloods and the Latin Kings, have been working with Guzze on a separate Hernandez project. (Hernandez is believed to have been affiliated at some point with the Bloods.)

“I don’t need to tell you how they work . . . I’m keeping them at bay right now, they don’t even know this is going on at this second,’’ Guzze wrote, according to the website. “So that’s my last little tidbit for you, and they’re right here in L.A.’’

Speaking to Deadline, Guzze implied that his e-mails were meant as a joke.

But in a submission to the court as part of the request for the restraining order, the Mark Gordon Co. said Guzze had sent one of its employees a photo Guzze had copied from the employee’s Facebook page that included his wife. With it, Guzze wrote: “Is this you?’’ “Are you ready?’’ and “I hope it’s worth it.’’

Hernandez was found hanged inside his cell at the state’s maximum security prison in Shirley last April. He was serving life without parole for killing Lloyd in an industrial park near Hernandez’s million-dollar North Attleborough home in 2013.