Five and a half hours ago The Oregonian’s Shawn Levy quoted from a Gus Van Sant Twitter post (128 characters) that said the following: “My next film is Dustin Lance Black‘s adaptation of Tom Wolfe‘s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. It’s going to be really funny.” The Twitter post was reportedly taken down after it appeared.

Levy noted that “the project has been in development, but this is the nearest thing to confirmed word that’s appeared anywhere so far. Take that, Variety!” In fact, the book’s Wikipedia page says that “a film adaptation of the book, directed by Gus Van Sant, is expected to be released in 2009. The screenplay was written by Dustin Lance Black, who also worked on the HBO series Big Love and Van Sant’s 2008 film Milk. The movie is being produced by Richard N. Gladstein.”

It might be funny but I’m predicting failure, or certainly an underwhelming reception. Van Sant gets the drug culture thing like no one else, but there’s no story here — Wolfe’s book is about mythology, performance art, wild episodes, characters (Ken Kesey, Neil Cassady, Wavy Gravy), ’60s atmosphere and, of course, the way it’s all described. Spiritual pyschedlic soul-searching material doesn’t play in cinematic terms. It can’t — it’s simultaneously too much and not enough.

(Thanks to HE’s Moises Chiullan for the alert.)