Viggo, Amy Adams Join 'On the Road' Adaptation

One of those pieces of literature that has beguiled Hollywood for decades with absolutely nothing to show for it is Jack Kerouac's On the Road. It is probably a combination of timing and finding money men who think it's worth the gamble. By timing, I mean it's not as simple as just doing this story back in the 1950s. Cinema wasn't really there yet, and probably wasn't, in terms of mainstream studio movies, until the 1970s, when more daring stories could be told more daring ways. The gamble is just that: If you've waited 50 years to make the movie, don't you owe it to Kerouac to do it the right way, and won't that be a little trickier than some 90-minute melodrama? Ironically or not, Francis Ford Coppola, who was on the forefront of an American film revolution in the 1970s, has owned the rights to the Beat Generation novel for overa quarter century, and finally - as a producers - he's bringing the film to life with the help of director Walter Salles. His Motorcycle Diaries makes Salles just about the perfect candidate. Well, casting sure hasn't been an issue, and that's a great sign, because whether or not you like On the Road I think we can all agree that a book that has influenced so many people and a culture ought to go in guns blazing. To that end, Kristen Stewart, Kirstend Dunst, and Garrett Hedlund have already joined the party, as has Sam Riley from Control. Deadline now says that Amy Adams and Viggo Mortensen have been added to the ensemeble, giving the film something it really didn't have: Anchors. Viggo will play Old Bull Lee, the renamed William S. Burroughs, and Adams is reportedly set to play his drug-addled wife, Jane. The big deal, though, is Riley, cast as Sal Paradise, Kerouac's alter ego. No pressure. But that's why I say the movie needs anchors. They don't necessarily have to carry the action, but having reliable, hard-to-knock talent like Mortensen and Adams is essential when the young cast around them doesn't have this kind of experience, certainly not under this big a microscope.

Comments

[Will]

I think this property, like Catcher in the Rye, or The Monkeywrench Gang, is one adaptation that has needed to happen for a long time. The only problem is, even though the story has never been realized on film, the ideas, plot devices and themes have been cut and pasted in to dozens of other films (and novels) in the fifty plus years since it was first published. I mean, Kerouac inspired boys to become writers who have now retired (or died), so I'm thinking that as exciting as it will be to finally see a film version (and he who plays the young Kerouac/Paradise is crucial...like, early DiCaprio crucial), this movie will probably feel like we have already seen it.

As for Mortenson, his talent is indeed hard to knock. But apparently he will take on any project with 'The Road' in the title these days, won't he? I suppose we will soon be reading that he has been cast opposite Tom Hanks in 'The Road to Purgatory' any day now, eh Boyd?