Many doubted David Mitchell's complex novel, "Cloud Atlas," could ever be adapted to the screen -- and that includes Mitchell himself. The project was long considered impossible because of its unique, interwoven narratives. With the Wachowski siblings ("The Matrix" trilogy) and Tom Tykwer ("Run Lola Run") on board to direct though, even if the film fails, it still looks like it will be one hell of a ride. The movie makers built their careers on healthy doses of eye-popping, technology-pushing spectacle.

Based on the 2004 novel by British author David Mitchell, "Cloud Atlas" consists of six intertwined stories that take the audience from the remote South Pacific in the nineteenth century to a distant, post-apocalyptic future. Each tale is revealed to be a story that is read (or observed) by the main character in the next. Many of the leading actors in the film portray several different people in different eras, with different hair color, and sometimes appearing as a different race, and even gender. Got that straight?

Mitchell's "Cloud Atlas" won the British Book Awards Literary Fiction Award, the Richard & Judy Book of the Year award, and was short-listed for the 2004 Booker Prize, Nebula Award, and Arthur C. Clarke Award.

"Cloud Atlas" was made on a budget of more than $100 million, a portion of which was furnished by Warner Bros., but most of which was raised independently, which has led some to call it "the most expensive indie film of all time."

The movie stars Halle Berry, Tom Hanks, Susan Sarandon, Keith David, Jim Sturgess, Bae Doona, Ben Whishaw, Hugo Weaving, and Jim Broadbent.

"I loved that it wasn't going to be simple for audiences," Tom Hanks said in a recent interview with The Chicago Sun-Times. "Lord, doesn't that sound beautiful? A film that is original, creative and makes you think. That's what movies used to be."

"I think it's as risky as 'Inception,' " Hanks added." 'Inception' was a complete one-off. You saw it the first time and said, 'How many movies are in this thing?' "

One of the directors, Lana Wachowski, said Mitchell saw the movie and loved it. "You do this amazing thing where you take highbrow ideas and lowbrow, entertaining narrative motifs, and combine it into a one-brow experience," she recalled Mitchell telling her. "We try to make monobrow movies. We don't like commercial, market-driven thing of splitting movies into arthouse and mainstream."

For their part, the actors felt privileged to be working on such a gargantuan project.

"I will never be a part of another film like this in my life - I know it," Berry said in an interview with Flicks and Bits.

She further explained, "Cloud Atlas will always be incredibly special. I'm going to always remember the experience and everything I got from it. I love its originality, the originality of everything. There are so many barriers being broken here, so many exciting concepts and, hopefully, it will leave people thinking about how they perceive the world and their own lives."

"Cloud Atlas" opens on October 26th.