PARK CITY, Utah (CAP) - It's one of the biggest winners at the Sundance Film Festival, and it surprisingly has nothing to do with either child rape or a vagina full of incisors. It wasn't even supposed to be shown at Sundance.
"I don't know how it happened. Maybe the feed knob was set wrong," said a projectionist who only wished to be identified as Bob. "I had the tape for Leg, Tongue, Existential Karma Puppy queued up and ready to go, hit the switch, and 'it' played."
Instead of an overlong moralistic art piece about a mute cripple and his magical beagle, the audience was subjected to the latest video from Al Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri. As al-Zawahri railed against the Bush administration's recently announced surge, many of the gathered Hollywood elite cheered, a few left, and one, Warner Independent Pictures head of development Michelle Olivant, saw greatness.
"I was just spellbound," Olivant recalled. "I mean, here's this old Muslim guy, humus in his beard, soiled towel on his head, going off on President Bush in a way that would rival, say, a Jack Nicholson or a George C. Scott. Aren't you aware that the dogs of Iraq are pining for your troops' dead bodies?" Olivant shuddered slightly and shook her head.
"So powerful ... it still gives me goosebumps," she said.
Warner Independent Pictures immediately got in touch with al-Zawahri's people, and a three-picture deal rumored to be in the high seven-digit per picture range was hammered out.
While the studio is being mum on what projects al-Zawahri may be signed to, CAP News has confirmed that one of the first will be a Muslim biopic about a simpleton who makes stark realizations about life called Faqul al-Gump.
- Rich Gray
Contributing Writer