The Road (film)

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The Road
Directed by John Hillcoat
Produced by Nick Wechsler
Steve Schwartz
Paula Mae Schwartz
Written by Joe Penhall
Starring Viggo Mortensen
Kodi Smit-McPhee
Charlize Theron
Cinematography Javier Aguirresarobe
Distributed by Dimension Films
Release date(s) November 11, 2008 (limited)
Country United States
Language English
Budget $30 million
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

The Road is an upcoming post-apocalyptic film directed by John Hillcoat and written by Joe Penhall. The film is based on the 2006 novel The Road by Cormac McCarthy, and it stars Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee as a father and his son in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Filming took place in Pennsylvania, Louisiana, and Oregon. The Road is scheduled for a limited release on November 11, 2008 and will expand afterward.

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[edit] Production

In November 2006, producer Nick Wechsler used independent financing to acquire film rights to adapt the 2006 novel The Road by Cormac McCarthy. John Hillcoat was pursued to direct the film when Wechsler had watched Hillcoat's 2006 film The Proposition after reading The Road. Wechsler described Hillcoat's style: "There was something beautiful in the way John captured the stark primitive humanity of the West in that movie."[1] In April 2007, Joe Penhall was hired to script the adapted screenplay. Wechsler and his fellow producers Steve and Paula Mae Schwartz planned to have a script and an actor cast to portray the father before pursuing a distributor for the film.[2] By the following November, actor Viggo Mortensen had entered negotiations with the filmmakers to portray the father, though he was occupied with filming Appaloosa in New Mexico with Ed Harris.[3] With a budget of under $30 million,[4] filming began in southwestern Pennsylvania in late February 2008 for eight weeks and moved on to Louisiana and Oregon.[5]

Hillcoat sought to make the film faithful to the spirit of the book, creating "a world in severe trauma", though never explaining the circumstances of the apocalyptic event like in the book. According to Hillcoat, "That's what makes it more realistic, then it immediately becomes about survival and how you get through each day as opposed to what actually happened."[6] Filmmakers took advantage of days with bad weather to portray the post-apocalyptic environment. Mark Forker, the director of special effects for the film, sought to make the landscape convincing, handling sky replacement and electronically removing greenery from scenes. Pennsylvania, where most of the filming took place, was chosen for its tax breaks and its abundance of locations that looked post-apocalyptic: coalfields, dunes, and run-down parts of Pittsburgh.[7]

[edit] Cast

[edit] References

  1. ^ Fleming, Michael (2006-11-07). "'Road' to bigscreen". Variety. Reed Business Information. 
  2. ^ Fleming, Michael (2007-04-01). "Penhall paves 'Road'". Variety. Reed Business Information. 
  3. ^ Schwartz, Missy (2007-10-07). "Viggo Mortensen May Hit 'The Road'". Entertainment Weekly. Time Inc.. 
  4. ^ Vancheri, Barbara. "Filming of 'The Road' leads to Pittsburgh", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Block Communications, 2008-01-16. Retrieved on 2008-05-27. 
  5. ^ "Mortensen, Theron on 'The Road' to Pittsburgh", USA Today, Gannett Company, 2008-01-16. Retrieved on 2008-05-27. 
  6. ^ a b c Vancheri, Barbara. "Filming wraps up on post-apocalyptic 'The Road'", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Block Communications, 2008-04-24. Retrieved on 2008-05-27. 
  7. ^ a b c d e McGrath, Charles. "At World’s End, Honing a Father-Son Dynamic", The New York Times, The New York Times Company, 2008-05-27. Retrieved on 2008-05-27. 
  8. ^ Siegel, Tatiana (2008-01-14). "Charlize Theron hits 'The Road'". Variety. Reed Business Information. 

[edit] External links