Salles and Kerouac On The Road

Hey guys, it's Donnie... Kerouac's On The Road is just one of a long list of books I've inexplicably never read. I understand that it's a really important work, and I'm sure it's fantasticly amazing and all, but I never really got into that whole Beat thing, so I guess I missed out. Oh well.

Francis Ford Coppola has held the film rights to this book for ages and has yet to be able to get the damn thing off the ground. Joel Schumacher was attached for a long time, but as of today, he and his neon lights are off the project and have been replaced by Walter Salles, the genius director behind last year's beautiful Motorcycle Diaries. Jose Rivera, who wrote the script for Diaries is onboard to adapt the script and Coppola will be producing. I have to say that I'm really excited to see how this turns out. There's no word on casting yet, but when Schumacher was involved Billy Crudup was in talks to star, so we'll see if he hangs around or gets replaced.

This isn't a rumor, it's not speculation, Salles is definitely making this picture, and personally I have very high hopes. I've been waiting to see what his follow up to Diaries would be. Technically speaking, he also directed Dark Water, but he wasn't happy with it and refused to do any promotion, so we'll overlook that for the moment and consider On The Road as his artistic follow up, if not his chronological follow up.