Is 'Cloud Atlas' having trouble finding distributors?

What seemed like every distributor's dream project with actors like Tom Hanks and Halle Berry in the lead, a film based on David Mitchell's novel Cloud Atlas had its share of woes. Turns out it was difficult for the directors of this independent film to find buyers as the complicated story created apprehensions.

Tom Hanks

The filmmakers - Andy and Lana Wachowski and Tom Tykwer - who had earlier directed the Matrix Trilogy and Run Lola Run respectively were rather surprised by the discouraging outcome. Our source says, "They had a tough time selling the film to the distributors before Warner Bros came on board. Apparently, the distributors doubted whether a film of such literary scale could indeed be made into a proper film and more importantly, if it'll sell."

Lana Wachowski

As of now, the film is the costliest independent project ever made in Hollywood with an independently financed $100 million budget. Lana reveals, "It took us about a year to write the script. I was extremely nervous to meet David Mitchell. But we all took a decision that if he didn't like it, we would kill the project."u00a0Fortunately, Mitchell loved it and gave the filmmakers his blessing. Lana adds, "The experts all said that it was too complicated. They thought... three directors? That's never going to work!"

It's complicated!
Cloud Atlas connects a 19th century notary who keeps a journal of his voyage across the Pacific Ocean, a musician in 1931 writing to a lover, a journalist investigating a murder at a nuclear plant in California, a publisher's pursuit of gangsters in present-day Britain, a robotic clone interviewed on the eve of her execution for rebelling against a totalitarian regime that created her in a dystopian future Korea, and a tribesman in a post-apocalyptic Hawaii who is visited by one of the last survivors of a dead civilization, to name a few. u00a0