Back in July, it was revealed that someone had found the supposedly “lost” Stanley Kubrick script for the unmade film “Burning Secret.” At the time, we weren’t sure what would come of this discovery. Would a studio step in to purchase the script, and attempt to finish his unfinished work, a la Orson Welles’ “The Other Side of the Wind?” Or perhaps, it’ll forever remain just an incredibly rare artifact that someone would keep under lock and key? Well, the real answer is option C — auction.
According to Deadline, Bonhams New York is set to auction off this never-produced Kubrick script at the end of the month. The auction house thinks the script for “Burning Secret” will garner a lot of interest and go for somewhere in the neighborhood of $20,000. But then, post-auction, we’re back at square one, with the same question — what’s next?
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“Burning Secret” is a project that Stanley Kubrick was attempting to make back in the mid-‘50s. Written in 1956, the script is said to be completely finished and authenticated by Kubrickian experts. The story is based on the 1913 novella by Austrian writer Stefan Zweig. Kubrick’s adaptation follows an insurance salesman that befriends a 10-year-old boy at a resort in order to seduce the boy’s mother. The “Burning Secret” script transfers the story to America in the 1950s, naturally.
As the report points out, the status of the script after the auction is still up for debate. There’s the very real chance that some private owner steps forward and buys the script for a personal collection. However, there’s also the chance that a studio steps in and purchases the script, with an eye to perhaps produce the long-forgotten film. Of course, there’s a legal mess that would have to be untangled, as the rights are up for debate.
That being said, the idea of a new film based on a Kubrick script is enough to garner plenty of interest from Hollywood. We’ll just have to see what happens on November 20.