User talk:J.D./On the Road (film)

On the Road is a film adaptation of the Jack Kerouac novel of the same name directed by Walter Salles. Filming set to begin on August 2 in Montreal with a $25 million budget.

Cast

 * Sam Riley as Sal Paradise
 * Garrett Hedlund as Dean Moriarty
 * Kristen Stewart as Mary Lou
 * Kirsten Dunst

Previous attempts
A film adaptation of On the Road has been in the works for years. Filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola bought the rights in 1979. Over the years, he hired several screenwriters to adapt the book into a film, including Michael Herr and Barry Gifford only for Coppola to write his own draft with son Roman. In 1995, the filmmaker planned to shoot on black-and-white 16mm film and held auditions with poet Allen Ginsberg in attendance but the project fell through. Coppola said, "I tried to write a script, but I never knew how to do it. It's hard – it's a period piece. It's very important that it be period. Anything involving period costs a lot of money". Several years later, he tried again with Ethan Hawke and Brad Pitt to play Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty respectively but this project also failed to work. In 2001, Coppola hired novelist Russell Banks to write the script and planned to make the film with Joel Schumacher directing and starring Brad Pitt as Dean Moriarty and Billy Crudup replacing Hawke as Sal Paradise. Reportedly, Schumacher wanted Colin Farrell to play Moriarty and the project was shelved.

Pre-production
Coppola saw the The Motorcycle Diaries and hired Brazilian director Walter Salles to direct the film. Salles was drawn to the novel because, according to him, it is about people "trying to break into a society that’s impermeable", and that he wants "to deal with a generation that collides with its society". In preparation for the film, he made a documentary entitled, Searching for On the Road in which he takes the same road trip as the lead character in novel, Sal Paradise, and talks to Beat poets who knew Kerouac. Coppola's American Zoetrope is producing the film, in association with MK2, Film4 in the U.K. and Videofilmes in Brazil.

Before filming begins on August 2 in Montreal with a $25 million budget, the entire cast will undergo a four-week "beatnik boot camp," according to Stewart, which will involve reading literature pertaing to the Beat Generation. After a month of shooting Montreal, the production will move to New Orleans where it will shoot for a month before moving to Mexico for several weeks before returning to Montreal to wrap the final scenes.

Casting
Sam Riley will star as Kerouac's alter ego Sal Paradise. Garrett Hedlund has been cast as Dean Moriarty. Kristen Stewart has confirmed that she will play Mary Lou. Reports have also stated that Kirsten Dunst has joined the cast as well.

Salles has reunited with some of the crew members that he worked with on The Motorcycle Diaries, including producer Rebecca Yeldham, screenwriter Jose Rivera, director of photography Eric Gautier, production designer Carlos Conti, and composer Gustavo Santaolalla.