The Million Dollar Hotel is a story of friendship, betrayal and the overwhelming power of unconditional love. A gang of uniqueoutcasts and misfits live in a downtown Los Angeles flea-pit,known locally as the Million Dollar Hotel.

In the film, which opens in US cinemas this month, their story isseen through the eyes of lovesick innocent Tom Tom (JeremyDavies), who is head over heels in love with tarnished street angel Eloise (Milla Jovovich). But the hotel becomes the focus of a police investigation when one resident, junkie Izzy, comes to a grisly end. Every denizen of the Million Dollar Hotel falls under suspicion in the inquiry led by FBI hard-liner, Detective Skinner (Mel Gibson).

'It has such an unhip subject matter: unconditional love,' says Bono, 'Imagine writing such a thing at the start of the 21st century! It couldn't be more out of step.’

The film is directed by Wim Wenders, acclaimed director of twenty films including Paris, Texas and Wings of Desire - and a long-time U2 collaborator. U2.COM tracked down Wim in Los Angeles to ask him about how The Million Dollar Hotel finally reached the silver screen.

Can you remember when you first heard about Bono's script for MDH?

Bono visited me in Berlin - I thought for another reason - but he had this script with him and he gave it to me very casually, wondering if I could take a look at it. He needed some advice, this was 1993 or 1994, he wasn't sure if he should be going to an American studio or taking a European route with it, it sounded like he wanted input.

I read it very carefully and gave him all my notes next time we met. I was convinced it was not a Studio idea, that it should be made independently, that it should be shot on location. I made him a short list of directors... but I never got to deliver that bit. When he asked me 'Who could direct it?' there was a certain look on his face and I realised that he realised I was hooked by it. That's when I understood his strategy and how smart he is.

What was it about the script that appealed to you?

Some of the characters I loved at first sight, especially Tom Tom and Eloise, I loved this feeling of a strange dysfunctional family and I could see them in this hotel and the world around it. In hindsight Tom Tom especially had a certain quality of character that hooked me, something I have been drawn to in other films, there was something of the angel about him, his innocence and unconditional love.

At that time the story was much wilder and too loaded in a way, we had to cut out some of the characters.

It has taken Bono and Nicholas Klein, his collaborator on the story, more than a decade to get the idea onto screen. Is that to do with the subject matter and the pretty eccentric individuals in the story?

The main problem has not been the script itself but that I suggested transposing the entire script fifty years into the future and making it into the Billion Dollar Hotel.

Bono was very sceptical at first but Nicholas Klein, our scriptwriter, liked it and eventually all three of us got on board with this sci-fi view of the film. That took us a number of years until we ground to a halt when we were about 15% away from completely
financing it. That's when we realised how strong but invisible were the walls between the (Hollywood) Studios and the independents. We had Sean Penn in as Tom Tom and then we had Johnny Depp but we never quite closed the finance with the Billion Dollar Hotel. Close but no cigar.

This was '95 or '96, and weÂ’d had two different casts and two generations of scripts and Bono, Nick and I decided that we had to scale back to the contemporary version, which would be half as cheap to make and we could get it done in no time.

When we returned to the Milion Dollar Hotel we found that our story worked better than before and we had no regrets but we had been involved together for six years before even getting to a shooting script. I had moved to LA in 1996 to get Billion Dollar
Hotel made and in the meantime made The End of Violence with Nicholas Klein. It has been a long process but I was convinced it was important to us because none of us lost interest, we all still felt urgent about it. Sometimes you lose interest but not with The Million Dollar Hotel.

The film at times has an other-worldly quality, a sense that there is more to life than meets the eye, that we make mistakes when we judge people too quickly without knowing them...

There is a dreamlike, fairytale quality to it. Slowly the film adopts Tom Tom's point of view and gets the audience to see the world from his perspective. I think it’s why Bono thought I should direct it - but it also has a certain attitude towards America which you can find in some of my other films, something about the American myth.

It has been lauded in some quarters and dismissed in others, embraced or dismissed as 'arthouse'. It seems you either get it or you don't - is that something you've experienced with your earlier work?

I've never had a film that has so polarised people. There is no middle ground. Audiences either enter into it and love it or stay outside and think it's shit. No-one says, 'It's not so bad!'

Has it been a disappointment that it has taken so long to get the film an opening in the US?

A lot of the distributors who liked the film seemed to get cold feet, they had a dilemma that the film was not a typical Mel Gibson film, it is not mainstream - and some distributors even told us that they didn't want to be the first to take a Mel Gibson film that wouldn't gross $100m. Because of Mel it gets compared to a lot of productions that we never had in mind and never wanted it to compete with.

But I'm pleased that we are finally getting it released in the US, that said, it is coming out at a very busy time, when the screens are flooded with Oscar hopefuls.

Jon Hassel, the trumpet player on the soundtrack, calls it a 'screwball tragedy'. But screwball comedies are more likely to succeed commercially.

It's an unusual mix of comedy and tragedy, as well as being romantic, a love story. I think it's a mixture that has not been tested much before, a bit of a new cocktail but I think it is one that may be around for a long time. I think it could be a film that lasts.

Bono has a very fleeting role on camera. Did you want him to have a bigger role on screen in the finished film?

If you look closely when Bono is on camera, you'll also see that Anton Corbijn, U2's photographer, is next to him - although only his back!

Bono was one of the creative threesome that saw this through from the beginning to the end and he was involved in everything from writing and shooting to editing. He was always available, I would be sending him material at many different times during the edit to see what he felt, especially as, in the end, he took responsibility for the soundtrack. I would think that when it came to scoring the film, he knew this film better than any film composer has known any film.

When Bono first saw the film we surprised him with Ground Beneath Her Feet in the opening sequence. He was amazed. He said that it sounded as if he had written it for the film - it's my favourite piece of music on the soundtrack and we used it again at the end.

I wanted him to have a bigger role in the film and at one point he would have, the part of the concierge, which was originally a much bigger role. I had convinced Bono that he should do it but the shooting was postponed and so it coincided with a two-month period when he had to be in the studio with the band making demo's for the new album. He can really act - we have made three videos together - I see how he reacts and follows indications from the director. There is an untapped talent there. He could have been a great actor I think. Or maybe a great politician! Or poet!

The soundtrack, including five tracks from U2, has been very favourably received. You've long used U2 songs in your films, notably Until the End of the World, Faraway, So Close and The End of Violence. What is the quality that appeals in them, are they particularly cinematic?

In our documentary on the making of the film, One Dollar diary (see exclusive U2.COM clip) you see Bono and Mel and the other cast members behind the scenes but you get especially good insight into the the mixing of the music, with Daniel Lanois and Bono in Dublin.

U2's songs have a cinematic intelligence, you find this in a lot of their material. This has something do to with Edge's guitar playing. He creates the space to allow images to come through without being overpowered. He gives a lot of their songs an atmosphere of openness which means they work well with imagery and I have never had trouble fitting their songs in a film. There is also an openness in Bono's voice and his lyrics, all offering this cinematic quality. You can find this especially on the Passengers album Original Soundtracks, film scores for non-existent films. It's not surprising some people think these films really exist. Their soundtracks are so good, you can imagine the movie that goes
with them.'

* The Million Dollar Hotel is now open in Los Angeles and New York. Visit the Million Dollar Hotel website for the latest news.

* The soundtrack to The Million Dollar Hotel is in shops now. You can hear clips now.

* The One Dollar Diary, a documentary about the making of the film by independent director, Dominic DeJoseph, is released in April. It is narrated by Wenders who gives exclusive insight into the directors inner-life on the set of an independent movie made in the bleak environs of downtown Los Angeles. Wenders talks about bringing his personal style of filmmaking, a painters eye and an emphasis on improvisation and long takes, to a non-European film being made within a tight budget and schedule. Starring Mel Gibson, Jeremy Davies, Milla Jovovich, Jimmy Smits, Peter Stormare, Amanda Plummer, Bud Cort, Gloria Stuart, Tim Roth, Wim Wenders, Bono, Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois and Jon Hassel. Shot on location at The Million Dollar Hotel, downtown Los Angeles, and U2's recording studio in Dublin.