Wachowskis Shopping Script For 'Hard-R' Gay Iraq War Drama

In December of last year, we got word that the Andy and Lana Wachowski were putting together a film "about the Iraq War, from the perspective of the future." The source was a set of comments and photos from Arianna Huffington, who seemed to be taking part in a shoot related to the project. At the time, we heard that she was involved in test shoots to help their next project take shape.

Now there's word that the Wachowskis are sending around a script that does cover the Iraq War, to some extent, but from a rather different angle.

Deadline describes the story as featuring "a 'hard R' homosexual relationship between a US soldier and an Iraqi." As we'd heard before, the story does start in the near future, but then moves back in time to tell the bulk of the story, part of which includes the current Iraq War. Deadline describes the stylistic apprach as 'cinema verite-style,' which would be a significant departure from anything the siblings have made in the past, and specifically from the heavily processed Speed Racer.

Further comments say that the script is done and that the Wachowskis want to direct. The fact that it is being sent out suggests that this could be a move away from Joel Silver and Warner Bros., which would be as significant a change as the move to cinema verite. But given the relative underperformance of Speed Racer and the fact that Iraq War movies don't sell at all, no surprise that the Wachowskis might need to find new partners.

Remember, too, that Jesse Ventura said about two months ago that he had done some work on an Iraq-related Wachowski project, describing it as:

Wait til you hear what they did. They brought me, and they brought Arianna Huffington in after me. Arianna was there, and they had her looking like cleopatra. What they did... Do you remember what John Travolta looked like in that horrible film Battlefield Earth? They put multicolored dreadlocks on me all the way to here. They gave me this crazy beard that was hanging down pointed, looked like Travolta, right? And they put a third eye in the middle of my forehead. Because what this is, is this is a hundred years in the future, and they wanted me to talk about the current war in Iraq and how I felt about it. And so I got to vent, looking like this maniac in this whole outfit.

I'd love to know more about the Ventura / Huffington footage. Is it test material, part of a pitch, raw footage for this project, or something else?