True story: Jim Lee spoiled The Fountain for me. While we were in San Diego, Warner Bros had a very cool cocktail party for the film, with Darren "Genius" Aronofsky (check out Nick’s exclusive interview with the guy from Comic Con by clicking here) and Rachel Weisz in attendance. Also at the party – a number of images based on the script, drawn and painted by comic book artists. One of whom was Jim Lee, who showed up at the party.
So I see Jim Lee talking to Aronofsky, and then he wanders off with our Warner Bros PR guy (a really fun dude, it must be said) to look at the pictures. They came to the one Jim himself had painted. I decided to take a chance, and even if it backfired, I figured Jim’s a small enough guy, I might have a shot.
"That one sucks," I said from over Jim Lee’s shoulder.
He turned and looked at me and said, "Yeah, but the frame is nice, so it really makes it look classier."
So Jim Lee’s a very cool fellow. We stood around and talked for a little while, mostly about his involvement in this little art project. He told me that the website for The Fountain would eventually have all these different pieces of art.
I took a closer look at Jim’s piece and asked him what it meant. I won’t tell you what he said, but for the next few minutes Jim Lee proceeded to tell me the entire story of The Fountain. The man’s a fine storyteller, by the way. (PS, Aronofsky, if you’re reading this – it means it’s totally kosher to have me over the Proteus offices for a screening! I’ve kept it all a secret this long!)
This is all leading us to the fact that the website for The Fountain is finally open, but it doesn’t have any of the art we saw at that party. In fact, it pretty much just has what you see above – except animated into a roiling, pulsating bit of intrigue. What does it mean? You can download it as your screensaver and get stoned, look at it and ponder.
Head over to http://www.thefountainmovie.com/ to check this out.