"The only people that interest me are the mad ones… but burn, burn, burn like roman candles across the night." With a Facebook page, new poster and a U.K. release date (September 21) surfacing recently, it was only a matter of time before a trailer for Walter Salles' long-awaited adaptation of Jack Kerouac's "On The Road" appeared, and now it has finally arrived.
Starring Sam Riley as Sal Paradise (the Kerouac surrogate), Garrett Hedlund as Dean Moriarty and Kristen Stewart as Dean's wife Marylou, "On The Road" has been at least five years in the making for Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles (and probably closer to about seven), the director behind "The Motorcycle Diaries," "Dark Water" and Academy Award-nominated Foreign Language Film "Central Station." That doesn't even count the 30-odd years that producer Francis Ford Coppola has owned the rights and has been trying to make a film about it (he came close twice, a version written with his son Roman Coppola in the '90s and an early aughts iteration which would have starred Colin Farrell and Billy Crudup as directed by Joel Schumacher; imagine that).
Co-starring Amy Adams, Kirsten Dunst, Viggo Mortensen, Terrence Howard, Tom Sturridge, Danny Morgan, Alice Braga, Steve Buscemi and Elisabeth Moss, the trailer depicts what you might expect from an "On The Road" movie made by Walter Salles. A first-half that's pretty conventional, jazzy, loose, with a beatnik vibe, the second half much more Salles: poetic, seemingly profound and full of beauty. It was "The Motorcycle Diaries" 's tale of coming of age, soul-awakening and discovery that showed Coppola that Salles was the man for the job and we think it's a sound decision. Written by 'Diaries' scribe Jose Rivera and scored by that film's composer, Gustavo Santaolalla, it's a reunion of sorts for the creative trio.
While you'll see Viggo Mortensen as William Burroughs and a brief glimpse of Dunst, Howard and Moss, there's still plenty to be revealed from this film no doubt. Set to arrive in the U.K. September 21, there's no U.S. date set, but a premiere at the Cannes Film Festival seems imminent with a fall release surely to follow.