It's true: Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg are all on the brink of being brought to celluloid life in three separate upcoming movies.
I'd heard of James Franco starring as Ginsberg in the Hollywood version of "Howl," which is supposed to focus on the obscenity trials that tailed Ginsberg's landmark 1957 poem. Alan Alda also stars.
But it looks like, as well, Francis Ford Coppola is directing a film adaptation of "On the Road" (which, interestingly, Kerouac published in 1957, a year that suddenly seems a lot more interesting to me). Coppola bought the film rights in 1979, but hasn't been able to get the film rolling, let alone finished. A quick Google search will reveal that this On the Road film has made headlines every few years when optimists thought Coppola was actually going to make it through. The wandering cinematic highway for Coppola is a more-than-obvious metaphor for the "plot" of Kerouac's book. But just as Kerouac in the novel made his way back home eventually, it looks like Coppola's adaptation might actually have a direction to aim at. The movie's scheduled for a 2010 release.
Meanwhile, a third movie called "Kill Your Darlings" (a title that causes writers everywhere to wink knowingly at each other) focuses on Lucien Carr, "the friend who brought Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs together, and his murder of a gay stalker which Kerouac and Burroughs helped to cover up in 1944," according to The Independent. Kerouac and Burroughs co-wrote a book about the incident that was only first published last year, called And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks. In the cinematic version, Jesse Eisenberg will play Allen Ginsberg, Chris Evans will play Kerouac, and English actor Ben Whishaw will star as Lucien Carr. John Krokidas will make his directorial debut with a script penned by his old college roommate.
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