As conspiracy theories go, it's hard to top this. Morgan Spurlock, of Super Size Me fame, hawked a 15-minute preview reel of his new film, Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden? at the Berlin film festival this February. The 50 studio executives who got to see the footage were apparently obliged to sign "draconian nondisclosure agreements". No great surprise there (they're probably insisting the same for the new Indiana Jones movie) - although the fact the Weinstein Company bought it for $25m made a few more people sit up and take notice. But all of a sudden, over the past week, rumours have been spreading on film blogs that Spurlock actually found and interviewed Bin Laden for the film.
The only evidence for this has been a quote from Where in the World...? cinematographer Daniel Marracino in the summer claiming they'd "definitely got the Holy Grail". But what else is he going to say? For his part, Spurlock was more circumspect when he appeared at SXSW. Of course, it's all brilliant publicity, which enhances the central thesis of the film: if a schmuck like Spurlock can find the most wanted man in the world, why can't George Bush? Or, more to the point, why won't George Bush?
The reality? He probably didn't. All this blog conjecture keeps reminding me of the 1988 Free Mandela Concert at Wembley, when rumours started circulating that the surprise special guest at the end was going to be Nelson Mandela himself. It wasn't. But it kept a few more schmucks watching.
