Sam Rockwell and Scarlett Johansson to Star in Kubrick's Lost film project LUNATIC AT LARGE

Director Stanely Kubrick has a new film project that is rising out of the shadows, a lost film project that has found it's way into production, headed for the big screen. Kubrick has many unfinished and unproduced projects though, this is one of many that I'm sure exist. The project is called Lunatic at Large and it's based on treatment by pulp author Jim Thompson that was commissioned by Kubrick back in the 1950's. He was supposed to make the movie after Spartacus but it never happened. The script to this film has been floating around for the last couple of years, now today Production Weekly reports that Scarlett Johansson and Sam Rockwell are attached to star in the film. There was a article written about this script back in 2006 at the NY Times.

The film is described as a  "a dark and surprising mystery" about which person among a group is "the true escapee from a nearby mental hospital."

Set in New York in 1956, it tells the story of Johnnie Sheppard, an ex-carnival worker with serious anger-management issues, and Joyce, a nervous, attractive barfly he picks up in a Hopperesque tavern scene. There’s a newsboy who flashes a portentous headline, a car chase over a railroad crossing with a train bearing down, and a romantic interlude in a spooky, deserted mountain lodge.

The great set piece is a nighttime carnival sequence in which Joyce, lost and afraid, wanders among the tents and encounters a sideshow’s worth of familiar carnie types: the Alligator Man, the Mule-Faced Woman, the Midget Monkey Girl, the Human Blockhead, with the inevitable noggin full of nails.

The original script was written by Stephen R. Clarke from the treatment by Thompson and Kubrick. There was also a director attached to the project in 2006, a commercial director named Chris Palmer but there are no details given on if he is still directing the project or not. Obviously Kubrick won't be directing, but the story sound incredibly interesting and if Kubrick had a hand in developing the story, then I'm definitely interested in seeing what he had envisioned.