Hanson insists that the movie is not about writing: "It's about what writing is about." Yet from the beginning, when you hear Douglas read a student's story and then start his narration over it while lines of poetry dance across a blackboard, the film envelops you in the sensuality of words. Kloves says, "I always felt strong on this movie. That's because Curtis does the groundwork along with you. Unlike other directors, who throw ideas at you and ask you to write them out and show them, Curtis discusses them with you and helps you narrow down the options -- then you execute them. So somehow your stamina is not squandered. He knows how to talk to a writer."

Also how to talk to actors. When I spoke to Hanson before the film's premiere last February, he lighted up while rolling off the attributes of his cast: Douglas' startling "lightness," his ability to be deeply amusing without straining for laughs and the seductive timbre of his normal speaking voice; McDormand's capacity to convey, immediately, the "emotional heft and intellectual acumen" of a college chancellor who has been making love to Douglas while keeping a comfortable home for his department head (Richard Thomas), her husband; and Maguire's uncanny skill at being, simultaneously, "devious (he's a liar, a prevaricator) and weird (that's why the other kids in class don't like him), and also a talent who may emerge to be a young Truman Capote."

Perhaps his biggest coup was the casting of Downey, which made the character of the editor about 15 years younger than he is in the book. "I just thought friendship is more interesting when it's about people being cut from the same cloth, as opposed to sharing an experience like school together," says Hanson. "I also felt that having the editor younger, and in between Douglas and Maguire, would help make the point that this 'wonder boy' thing we were dealing with, of facing past success and future promise, cuts across generations. It's not about a middle-age crisis, and it's not just about a novelist. The trick there was to find an actor who was credible as an editor and could have the kind of bonhomie where you feel that he and his writer are drinking buddies and like to hang out together, and was also funny. I thought Downey's work in 'Chaplin' was absolute genius, and I liked him in so many things over the years. I was concerned -- I'd never met Robert and I'd heard the stories of his personal problems -- but he flew to Pittsburgh to sit down and talk about it and he was so forthright, owning up to his responsibility and also to his commitment to the work at hand, that I said let's go. And I never regretted it for an instant."

Chabon, who briefly visited the company in Pittsburgh, says, "I could tell, even with my tiny experience watching him on the set, that Curtis has an amazing way with actors. He is quiet and commanding -- not domineering but just completely running things, and asserting himself in a polite and decent way. He gives you the sense that he knows what he's doing, totally, and to me he was everything a movie director is supposed to be. He was like a Fitzgeraldian man of authority out of 'The Last Tycoon,' but as a director-producer, not a producer-executive."

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Chabon ended up seeing the finished film three times. "The first time, I saw it alone in a screening room -- not the most enjoyable way to see any movie, but especially not one in which I had so many expectations. The second time, I was surrounded by a thousand people laughing in the big theater on the Paramount lot, and I was able to relax and really enjoy myself. And the third time, I could appreciate the depth of the craftsmanship. You know how when you're relaxed with a movie, you let your mind range freely through it? Many things delighted me, from the titles on the bookshelves to small details of the performances. You know the scene where Douglas looks out the window at Frances McDormand as she's getting people in the cars to go to WordFest? She tells them to be careful because it's dangerous -- it's really 'slippy' out there. And saying 'slippy,' not 'slippery,' is a Pittsburgh-ism. I picked that up the third time, and I thought, 'What an amazing bit of ad-libbing in character!' She's such a great actress. I admired her in 'Almost Famous,' but I thought she was radiant in 'Wonder Boys.'"

Chabon says, "I feel bad that it didn't do better when it first opened; I felt personally responsible for all these talented people experiencing a box-office failure through no fault of their own." He regrets that, unlike the novel, the movie got a middle-age tag to it. But he's not surprised. He thinks that "if you market a movie off its reviews, that can skew it to older audiences. But why should all movies be about teenagers in halter tops? Anyway, the 'wonder boys' concept is harder to convey than a midlife crisis. And I think the casting of Douglas put a certain spin on it. As talented and successful and accomplished as he is -- and as brilliant a job as he does in the movie -- he's not an 'anti-star' the way his character is an antihero. But maybe if the marketing had been wilder and looser, if they found a way of saying the movie was a throwback to the glory days of Ashby and Altman, that would have been enough to change the expectations."

Although Paramount and Rudin did not respond to interview requests from Salon, Paramount vice-chairman Friedman has been practicing an odd form of spin control in print. He told the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday that the film hadn't been "ready in time" for the studio to do a 1999 Oscar campaign; the same article also stated (presumably with Friedman as the source) that the film didn't test well. Friedman previously declared to the Associated Press, "I think we all believed we produced the best campaign and gave the movie the best launch that was appropriate at the time."

Kloves disagrees. "I think it would be dishonest to say anything other than that the campaign was horrendous," he says. "When I first heard they were putting it out in the graveyard of pre-spring, I thought it was over. And you couldn't have gotten me to the movie they seemed to be promoting if you put a gun to my head -- and I am this movie's target audience. Look, it's their job to sell the movie. I know it can be a hard job, but, hey, our jobs are hard, too."

Hanson says the film was ready and did test well a year ago. What seems to frustrate him most is that "Wonder Boys" played well even to youthful members of his preview groups, but no one figured out how to get younger audiences to fill theater seats as paying customers. That's why Hanson is optimistic about the picture's rerelease. He hopes he'll get more play for Dylan's song and for the dazzling music video he shot for it. This prismatic, ticklish piece of work brings out the singer-songwriter's goofy wit and underlines his status as the ultimate wonder boy -- or maybe a wonder elder who retains his youthful glow by continually taking his art to the limit.

"The only film I can remember that had a successful big-studio rerelease is 'Bonnie and Clyde,'" Hanson recently told me. "And right around the time I talked to Sherry and Rob about our rerelease, American Movie Classics called about licensing some photos I took on the set of 'Bonnie and Clyde.' I considered that an omen." Dede Allen, who edited "Bonnie and Clyde," also edited "Wonder Boys."

At one point in "Wonder Boys," Douglas advises Maguire, "Books don't mean anything. Not to anybody. Not anymore." But Maguire responds that Douglas' last novel "meant something to me. It's one of the reasons I came to school here. To be in your class. To be taught by you." Making "Wonder Boys" was, for Hanson and Kloves and the cast, an act of faith that movies can mean something. Their reward will be the appreciation of lovers of words and images, who will get to see this movie where it belongs -- on the big screen -- and savor the wonder of it all.

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