Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.

Boy, sourcing this stuff can get convoluted sometimes. Ultimately, Dana Harris at VARIETY gets the credit for breaking the first part of today’s FOUNTAIN update, but I was directed to the story by an e-mail that actually referred me to a story on Coming Soon.net. I’d like to reprint the entire e-mail from “Hogan Hulk,” just so you can enjoy the warm, friendly, open relationship I have with my readers the same way I do:

WB & New Regency Turn on Aronofsky's Fountain

Saturday, June 8, 2002 1:42 CDT

Variety reports that Warner Bros. Pictures and New Regency have partnered to co-finance Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain (a.k.a. The Last Man), a sci-fi epic that will star Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. The companies are currently trying to determine a start date for the production which is budgeted north of $70 million. New Regency replaces Village Roadshow Pictures, which was originally expected to co-finance the pic.

Aronofsky's road toward production on this pic has been a rocky one, says the trade. Village Roadshow came aboard last year when the film was targeted for a fall 2001 start and a fall 2002 release. However, the studio then pushed its production target to this summer. The move was to accommodate Warners' concerns over the budget and script as well as Blanchett's pregnancy.

While "Fountain" is expected to be as visually ambitious as "Matrix," Aronofsky's project isn't expected to have the benefit of being a potential franchise.

Aronofsky and Ari Handel wrote the script, which has been kept tightly under wraps. Aronofsky will produce with Eric Watson, his partner in Protozoa Pictures.

http://www.comingsoon.net/cgi-bin/archive/fullnews.cgi?newsid1023518520,20536,

Of course, AICN never lets the facts get in the way of bashing Warner Bros. especially when all of the other studios are engaging in the same type of shitty corporate behavior.

I see all.....

Thanks, Dad.

In all seriousness, I’m sorry if it seems like we’re “bashing” Warner Bros. I think you’re seeing something that’s not there, since I didn’t actually offer any editorial comment in my initial article last week. I wondered what effect it would have on the BATMAN project that Aronofsky is working to develop with Warner Bros. if the turnaround rumor turned out to be true. That’s all. Go take a look. It’s a relatively benign piece.

Reading the story about the co-financing deal between Warner Bros. and New Regency, it’s obvious what happened: the project wasn’t being shopped in turnaround, but in a possible partnership deal. That’s why Aronofsky and Protozoa and Warner were sending the script around town on a very select basis.

Of course, that was their mistake. Because if you send a script out, and it’s something I really, really want to read, I am going to have to utilize my minions to get my hands on it. In this case, I wrote back to “Maxamillian Cohen” to ask him if he had been smart enough to copy the thing when it was on his desk. I got a response within hours:

Hey again Mori! Nice to hear from you!

I couldn’t make a copy of the script. It came in the day before I wrote you and went back out immediately. My boss read it,and it’s got her name on the script. I couldn’t give it to you if I wanted. But I have a friend who might be able to give you one. Try him!

A quick volley of e-mails back and forth with another guy at another company got me two things: a copy of the script that is now sitting on my desk and a description of what to expect:

its a crazy script. Starts in the jungle with a giant battle sequence. Spanish guys versus Mayan warriors. There’s a temple there’s a secret and then we jump to the year 2500 a thousand years later and one guy from the opening is still alive somehow and he’s in this spaceship going to the edge of the universe for a date with God.

but even that doesn’t really describe it. There’s three different timelines at play in the film, and Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett play multiple characters from the different eras. She’s going to make you cry like a fucking bitch if she rips it up. She plays a queen, a ghost, and a woman dying of cancer. Like I said...crazy. If you like 12 Monkeys style Brad Pitt then you will love this cos its the same kind of mindfucking thing where you are gonna to argue with your friends afterward for hours about what happened in the end. I read it three times and I want you to review it just so I know what the hell happens in it.

oh yeah and George Lucas better take some notes cos this is the real deal, a sciencefiction love story that really works!! Read it for your self and let me know what you think.

“Jeffrey Goines”

That tears it. I’m reading this script tomorrow, and I’ll try to get back to you all with some thoughts later in the week. I’m curious as hell at this point, and pleased to have pierced the veil of secrecy so promptly.

It was the beard. The beard commanded me. I am hypnotized... by the beard...

"Moriarty" out.