Cinema

By CATHY BOOTH

STANLEY KUBRICK died in March, days after finishing his controversial film Eyes Wide Shut. But that may not be the last moviegoers see of his work. Warner Bros. owns the rights to AI, a science-fiction flick Kubrick wanted to do about artificial intelligence. Warner co-chief TERRY SEMEL says there is a script and even storyboards completed for the movie. Normally, Kubrick never did storyboards--he preferred to let movies develop over a long period--but he had to do them for AI, which mixes computer-generated figures with human actors. As with all things Kubrickian, the story line is a bit of a mystery. Semel describes it as "a boy in space and artificial intelligence," while Kubrick's friend and producer on Eyes, Jan Harlan, says it's "a study of a society well in the future where you cannot have a child without a license."

If not for the slow development of artificial intelligence in the real world, the movie might have made it to the screen before Eyes. "Stanley was eager to get back into the game" after a 12-year hiatus but couldn't decide which film to do first, says Semel. The director even toyed with the idea of having Steven Spielberg direct AI, and the two men discussed the story, but Kubrick decided he wanted to do it after Eyes. Warner owns the rights to the script--just as MGM owns the rights to another Kubrick script, Napoleon--but there are no plans to make the film. Pity. For the man who made 2001: A Space Odyssey, AI would have been a fitting finale.

--By Cathy Booth/Los Angeles