I'm not in favor of authors trying to complete works of fiction by dead authors, but I think this is exciting news:

Among the discarded projects of the famously fastidious Stanley Kubrick are "lost" movies about Napoleon Bonaparte, the Holocaust and the American civil war. Now, 11 years after his death, a treatment by the legendary film-maker titled Lunatic at Large looks set to make it to the big screen, with Scarlett Johansson and Sam Rockwell attached to star.

Production Weekly broke the news on Twitter last night, reporting that the project is based on an original story by Kubrick and pulp writer Jim Thompson. The film-maker was set to shoot the movie in the early 1960s, but withdrew after being offered the chance to direct Roman epic Spartacus by its star, Kirk Douglas.

Filmmaking is such a collaborative endeavor that posthumous tinkering can't really be considered much of an artistic crisis (let's for just a few minutes pretend that A.I. never existed, and let's hope that Steven Spielberg doesn't get his mitts on this project.) If you love crime novels and you haven't read Jim Thompson, you're really missing out; I've read everything he's ever published and the prospect of a "lost" story coming to light—especially with Sam Rockwell starring—is always a cause for celebration.