IT WAS supposed to be a cinema blockbuster - the true story of a German scientist trying to deliver Scottish mail by rocket.
But five years after shooting ended, and two years after the director died, The Rocket Post has only now landed a distribution deal.
The film appears to have set the record for the longest time taken for a major production to go from the last sho
ut of "cut" to cinema release.
During the long search for a distributor, producer Mark Shorrock quit the film business to promote wind farms and director Stephen Whittaker, whose TV credits included Nicholas Nickleby and Inspector Morse, died of cancer.
The cast of the £5m film, shot largely on the Hebridean island of Taransay in 2001, includes Trainspotting star Kevin McKidd, Gary Lewis from Billy Elliot and newcomer Shauna Macdonald.
In 2002, it won a major prize at the Stony Brook Film Festival in New York State, and there were other special screenings, including one at the An Lanntair arts centre in Stornoway last year. The film even came out on DVD in Scandinavia, but still struggled to find a UK distributor.
Now, more than five years after The Rocket Post was made, a deal has been secured with the UK division of Lions Gate - which recently distributed George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck - and it will be released in British cinemas later this year.
It seems the film's change in fortune is largely down to the fact that audiences are getting older and may be more receptive to old-fashioned dramas.
Nick Manzi, Lions Gate UK's head of acquisitions, believes cinemagoers are now ready for the story about an eccentric German scientist's attempts to deliver mail to the islands by rocket and his fictionalised romance with a Scottish girl.
"The audience is getting older," he said. "Films that we passed on four or five years ago we may have bought now."
Manzi previously worked for Redbus, a small British company that was taken over by Lions Gate, and he first saw the film several years ago. "It's a very good film," he said. "We liked it, but at the time it wasn't right for us and, over quite a long period, we tracked the project.
"The difficulty with theatrical films is that the market place changes so quickly. Four or five years ago who would have thought that Brokeback Mountain or Constant Gardener would have done the sort of business that they have done?"
Lions Gate struck a deal with financier Guy Hands and plans to open the film in up to 20 Scottish cinemas in November, followed by further cinemas in England, if it attracts a positive response north of the Border.
Former Bond villain Ulrich Thomsen plays scientist Gerhard Zucker, who attempted to interest the British government in a scheme to deliver mail to the islands by rocket, though he had failed to impress the authorities in his native Germany.
He arrived in the Western Isles in 1934 with the intention of firing a rocket across the water between Harris and Scarp. There was even talk of a one-minute cross-channel postal service.
In the film, romance blossoms between Zucker and a local schoolteacher, played by Shauna Macdonald. It was her first big starring role, though she has since gone on to other parts, including the central role in the horror film, The Descent.
Zucker's initial tests were successful, but tensions were growing in Europe and the Nazis refused to allow him to export his solid rocket fuel. The Scarp test ended in disaster when the rocket exploded, scattering thousands of letters across the beach and sea. Zucker returned to Germany and the scheme was abandoned.
David Edes, an Alness publican, was an extra in a ceilidh scene that was shot at Dornoch, Sutherland, and was keen to see the end result. "I kept looking and looking and looking to see when it was coming out and eventually somebody told me about this Danish website where you could buy the DVD."
He received it a few days later. "It's brilliant," he said. "I spent 12 hours dancing Strip The Willow and you see me for a split second, but it's great family entertainment."
He arranged a screening of the DVD in the Hootananny bar in Inverness a few months ago and got a very enthusiastic response.
Producer Mark Shorrock said he never had any doubts the film would come out. "It's too strong to have just withered on the vine," he said.
He was at the Stornoway screening last year. "The audience appreciated the humour and you could hear a pin drop in the sadder moments," he said. "They laughed and they cried - everything I had always hoped for the film."
Films such as Local Hero, Braveheart and Harry Potter have proved a tourist boon for Scotland in the past and there are similar hopes for The Rocket Post.
Angus Campbell, vice-convener of the Western Isles Council, said: "This will hopefully be a major advert for the beauty of the Outer Hebrides."
