Screen International reported last Friday that Beeban Kidron, director of the endlessly-delayed, obviously problematic Hippie Hippie Shake, has left the film over disagreements with Working Title, the film’s producer. The film’s screenwriter Lee Hall, Kidron’s husband, bolted sometime earlier.

The counter-culture drama about Oz editor Richard Neville (Cillian Murphy) and his girlfriend Louise Ferrier (Sienna Miller) began shooting nearly two years ago, in September 2007.

The Screen Int’l story said that Working Title “has scotched rumors that Hippie Hippie Shake is to go straight to DVD, saying that it is scheduled to be released next February on over 100 prints.”

The rep of this poor misbegotten film has gone from intriguing to worrisome to there-must-be-something-wrong to massive fartbomb. I’ve been wanting to see it all along because of alleged “sexual content, strong dialogue, graphic nudity and drug use throughout.”