On the Road, On the Screen

The Millions discusses Kerouac's masterpiece and the efforts to put it on the silver screen.

From the article...

One of the most polarising works in the whole of the American literary canon, its cultural resonance continues to endure, and for many — the bohemian, the backpacker, the dropout, the hipster — it remains a sacred text. However, as well as being a work of great literary and cultural import, On The Road holds the dubious distinction of having made a journey to the big screen as tortured and as fractured as any other book one might care to mention. It has taken a total of 55 years, and almost as many screenwriters, to finally convert Kerouac’s vision of “an anywhere road for anybody anyhow” to film.

A cinematic adaptation of On The Road has been in the works almost since the day it was published. In late 1957, a matter of weeks after the novel’s appearance, Warner Brothers offered $110,000 for the motion-picture rights. At the news that Paramount and actor Marlon Brando were similarly interested, Kerouac’s agent attempted to incite a bidding war, and Kerouac himself wrote a letter to Brando imploring him to purchase the rights and co-star in it with him: “I visualize the beautiful shots could be made with the camera on the front seat of the car showing the road (day and night) unwinding into the windshield, as Sal and Dean yak…You play Dean and I’ll play Sal (Warner Bros. mentioned I play Sal) and I’ll show you how Dean acts in real life.”

Nothing came of Kerouac’s request, with Brando supposedly believing On The Road to be too “loose” for a Hollywood makeover.