(We open on the chaos of a table being knocked over. A stocky figure... a long-beared dwarf in SWAT armor -- ALMSOT THORNE (Brendan Gleason) paces before a terrified human being in sweaty clothes. The disheveled figure -- NICK THAYER (Johnny Depp) looks up at him in fear. As another dwarf, this one calmly packing his pipe, BAEL WELLINGTON (Ray Wintsone) smokes a cigarette, THORNE advances on NICK.)
THORNE: Listen, you got to the count of three to come clean, boyo.
NICK: I have nothing to come clean about.
THORNE: One.
(NICK just stares at THORNE. THORNE grits his teeth, and comes out with a taser.)
THORNE: Two.
(NICK just stares at him. THORNE rolls his eyes.)
THORNE: Well, that’s that then.
(He walks up to NICK, puts the taser to his crotch, and presses the button.
NICK screams and falls off of his chair, trying to push the taser away, but every time he reaches down, THORNE hits him with another jolt that makes his arms wrench upward.)
THORNE: Did you kill them? Did you kill the two women we found last night in the shipping district?
NICK: NO!
THORNE: DID YOU KILL THEM! CORNER OF VINE AND NESSINGWAY! TWO DEAD HUMAN WOMEN!
NICK: NO!
(THORNE jacks up the juice. WELLINGTON lights his pipe at the table behind them.)
THORNE: ONE MORE TIME, NICK! ONE MORE TIME!
(He ramps up the juice even more on the taser. NICK, tears running down his face, screams…)
NICK: OKAY! IT WAS ME! IT WAS ME! JUST STOP THIS!
(THORNE withdraws the taser.)
THORNE: Huh. Well, he’s innocent.
(NICK looks up through bloodshot, pained eyes.)
THORNE: It was a mermaid we found there, not two human women.
NICK: W-w-what kind of f-fucked-up interrogation technique is that?
THORNE: A damn effective one, boyo.
(THORNE pats him on the back, as NICK doubles over in pain.)
INTO A CITY OF DREAMS...
(We see an aging detective, dressed in a suit and a trenchcoat, WALTER GREGG (Jack Nicholson), standing with NICK over a pair of bodies inside a morgue. NICK looks a little pale.)
WALTER: You’re going to be our boy on the streets. What you hear about this, we hear about this.
(NICK shakes his head.)
NICK: You’re dirty as they come.
WALTER: It happens when you live on the street. But you’re as dirty as I am. And maybe us dirty people can save some of these angels.
(WALTER smiles.)
...ROLLS A SCREAMING NIGHTMARE
(NICK is on his knees, bleeding from the mouth and nose, as several green-jacket wearing gang-bangers encircle him. One, the leader, JARED KELLER (Heath Ledger) stands out front, a gleaming .45 in his hands...)
VOICE: Hey.
(…standing just down the street is a small, yellow creature, about four feet tall with a long, flat, catlike head. He is XAVIER KELLOGG (Voice of Tim Roth). This goblin, dressed in an ill-fitting suit, steps forward, hands in his pockets.)
XAVIER: Leave him alone.
JARED: Get the hell out of here. This is Dark Eye business.
(XAVIER draws something out of his coat. JARED’S four fellow gang members turn, pulling their guns… as XAVIER reveals his tape recorder, that he holds up. With his free hand, he stuffs cotton into his ears.)
XAVIER: Last chance. He’s my friend, and you’re not gonna hurt him. You’re gonna go home. All of you.
JARED: Get the fuck out of here.
(XAVIER sighs.)
XAVIER: You ever hear the story of the Banshee?
(NICK puts his hands over his ears. XAVIER hits play.)
...THE RED HEAT OF DESIRE...
(We see a beautiful young woman, with slightly pointed ears, sitting with NICK at a club. She is dressed in expensive, form-fitting, trendy clothing. She is ERICA POLARIS (Natalie Portman). She leans forward, taking NICK'S hand.)
ERICA: You don’t have to worry about my standing, or my dad, or any of that. I’m my own person. You don’t have to be nervous, Nick.
(She leans in.)
ERICA: So don’t be.
(CUT TO the two of them, making out on a bed, clothes starting to come off...)
...THE YELLOW FLASH OF VIOLENCE...
(We see an image of THORNE and WELLINGTON, in full SWAT regalia, storming into a building amid a wave of teargas, firing "spaz" style shotguns.)
We see EDWARD POLARIS (James Woods), a finally dressed businessman, standing in a parking garage, turning around slowly. He has pointed ears, just like his elven daughter.)
EDWARD: No problems here, officer. You crashing into me was an honest mistake.
(WALTER walks into the frame, holding a gleaming magnum handgun.)
WALTER: Put your hands up.
EDWARD: For what reason? I’m only here to check on the welfare of my daughters. They sounded frightened over the phone…
WALTER: Oh, you piece of jack-shit…
EDWARD: Prove me wrong, Detective.
(WALTER walks up to EDWARD.)
WALTER: Ed?
EDWARD: Hmm?
(WALTER pistol-whips him in the face, as hard as he can.)
...THE GREEN GLIMMER OF MYSTERY...
(We see NICK as he takes a few steps into a dark forest. It seems to close behind him… the air gets cooler… darker…
…he steps forward a little farther… and sees an orb of white light, flitting between the trees. He steps toward it.)
NICK: Hello?
(The light darts away from him. He swallows, hard.)
NICK: Alright, that’s not weird.
(He takes a few steps after this Will-O’-the-Wisp… when the ground gives way beneath him. He quickly tries to raise himself… only to find his legs held in place by sharpened wooden spikes… a classic pungee trap. He cries out as the spikes dig into his leg slightly, then quickly takes out a knife and begins to try to saw through them. He barely gets through two when he looks up…
…the wisp is floating over him. And as he watches, several other small balls of light begin to float over to him, bobbing in place. He looks up at them… and then the wisps scatter, as something begins to close in on him. He looks up, seeing what it is… and freezes.
It moves with catlike feet, a creature with the body of a lion. A huge, dripping scorpion’s tail hovers above it’s body, drizzling poison into the air. Two huge bat-like wings lay folded by its sides.
The face that lowers until it almost touches NICK’S is human, but blood-red. When the beast opens its mouth, however, what he sees are rows and rows of shark’s teeth. The manticore raises one paw, marked with seven gleaming black claws…)
VOICE: Stop.
(The manticore lowers its claws, and backs away from NICK. He looks over as a figure emerges from the treeline… one of many beings.)
VOICE: We’ve been tracking him since he came in.
(The lead figure leans down. In the light of the high, circling wisps, he sees himself staring into the horn-rimmed face of a satyr, CIRIAX (Jordi Molla).)
CIRIAX: Now, what on earth could bring you to my home?
(The goat man smiles down at NICK.)
...THE BRILLIANT BLUE OF WHAT IS...
(We see a shot of ERICA and NICK in a large room in a very expensive, upscale penthouse. Suddenly, the sounds of a piano are heard. ERICA and NICK look toward the sound. The song being played is “Untitled” by the Crash Test Dummies.)
NICK: Who’s playing that?
(ERICA smiles.)
ERICA: That’s my sister.
NICK: You have a sister?
(The two of them walk into a small side-room. It is empty, save for a piano and the elf-woman playing it. She is dressed in a long white dress that hangs across her wispy features. Her hair is long, falling across her shoulders. She looks up at NICK and ERICA, and ceases playing.)
NICK: Hello.
(The piano-playing elf, ELLEN POLARIS (Keira Knightley) smiles at NICK.
We CUT TO her taking NICK'S hand, on a boat of some kind.
SERIES OF SHOTS:
A group of pig-like creatures, draped in shawls, walking alongside a trash-strewn roadway.
A country bar, packed to the brim with inhebriated centaurs.
An abandoned motel, with XAVIER walking across. He passes a mossy, overgrown swimming pool, where several crocodiles bask.
A huge shot of the cityscape...
...and then a shot of a highway. A car skids to a stop...
...and a titanic dragon lands on the roadway, the grass blown wild by the wind beat down by his wings.
BLACKOUT.)
...AND THE COLD PURPLE OF WHAT WAS...
(We see a dark, abandoned fairgrounds, with a huge ferris wheel turning overhead, gleaming with ghostly light. Standing front of it is a pulsing suit of rusted armor. Inside it gleam two ghostly lights. JARED KELLER stands before it, holding a machete outward. He stands over ERICA, NICK, Nick's younger daughter LIBBY (Ellen Page), and his terrified little brother, HOWARD KELLER (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). A dry voice... the voice of the undead king, CERRADANIA (Voice of Gary Oldman), issues out of the helmet...)
CERRADANIA: You challenge me.
JARED: Yes. Right here. To the death.
CERRADANIA: There is no death for either…
JARED: Stow it. I’ll carve through that metal and find whatever’s left of you and take my weapon to it.
CERREDANIA: I am a God.
JARED: I guess that makes me an atheist.
(JARED grins.)
...MAKE THE RAINBOW OF EVERYTHING...
(We finally settle on a shot of WALTER and ED at a seaside park, looking out to the distant ocean. In the distance, miles and miles away, gigantic sea creatures... KRAKENS... surface and dive.)
EDWARD: Everything behind us... it's dangerous. So corrupted. You have to see it. You have to see it.
WALTER: Yeah, I see it. But I love it anyway.
(WALTER smiles.)
Jack Nicholson
Johnny Depp
Natalie Portman
Keira Knightley
Brendan Gleason
Tim Roth
Heath Ledger
James Woods
Ellen Page
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Jordi Molla
Ray Winstone
Sean Bean
and
Gary Oldman as Romulus Cerradania
FRIDAY Pleased to meet you. Hope you guess my name.
Colors of the Rainbow
