Fittingly, it's been a long journey. After years of wandering, Beat writer Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" is finally jumping from the page to the screen. Francis Ford Coppola — whose American Zoetrope production company has owned the film rights to the classic road-trip novel since 1979 — will begin production of the film with "The Motorcycle Diaries" director Walter Salles behind the camera, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

"The book is inherently difficult to adapt to the screen, and we've never quite found the right combination of director and writer to do it justice until now," said Coppola, who will executive produce the film. The screenplay for "On the Road" will be written by Jose Rivera, who collaborated with Salles on "Diaries," which told the story of Cuban revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara's political awakening during a motorcycle journey through South America in the early 1950s. Salles recently released his English-language debut, the thriller "Dark Water," starring Jennifer Connelly.

Kerouac's 1957 novel is not only his most famous work, but also the book that helped to launch the Beat movement in American literature. The fictionalized autobiography is narrated by one of Kerouac's alter egos, Sal Paradise, whose journey across the country is accompanied by a colorful cast of characters based on the writer's real-life circle of friends, lovers and fellow road warriors.

Nearly 50 years after its publication, the classic tale of a journey into the unknown in search of personal freedom continues to inspire new generations, which is one of the reasons Salles said he was interested in taking up the tricky job of transferring it to film.

" 'On the Road' is a seminal book that gave voice to a whole generation — capturing its hunger for experience, unwillingness to accept imposed truths and dissatisfaction with the status quo," Salles said. "It is as modern today as it was four decades ago."

Casting and production of the movie is expected to begin next year.

i can't believe someone is ripping a style of writing. like i want to see you rip on somebody like hemmingway who had a fetish for strong women or death, or rip on someone like the good doctor who would throw politics into any article. the style was of movement of a beat. of a pitty pat. if you can't figure that out, go back to senior year english class.

i can't believe someone is ripping a style of writing. like i want to see you rip on somebody like hemmingway who had a fetish for strong women or death, or rip on someone like the good doctor who would throw politics into any article. the style was of movement of a beat. of a pitty pat. if you can't figure that out, go back to senior year english class.

i liked the book. i just can't see it making for a good movie though.

My thoughts exactly. I'm hoping it'll be good though. This book definitely inspired me when I read it at the end of my senior year of college. Hopefully the movie will do the book justice (although that rarely happens with movies based on books).

I wonder who they would get to play the parts of Sal and Dean...

what book do you think would be harder to make into film


Catcher in then rye or On the Road?????

One thing I hated about On the Road was the way the sentences never ended and just kept going without punctuation of any kind, exept maybe for a comma here and there and it made it hard to read for more than two paragraphs at a time before I got tired and frustrated with Kerouac and said "You stupid proto-hippie speed freak why don't you lay off the benzadrine and take an English class" but thats just my opinion.

hard to make into film, or harder to make well?