Here is a new shot from the set of The Road, the film version of Cormac McCarthy’s novel of the same name. The photo shows Kodi Smit-Mcphee as The Son, sitting on a road waiting for something. It’s unclear whether that’s Viggo Mortensen in the background or some other character.
The NY Times did a nice piece on the film today and there were some highlights of it worth passing on to you all.
First off, the filming is done and the premiere is still set for November 26th. Here are a few details about the filming locations:
“The Road” began filming in late February, mostly in and around Pittsburgh, with a later stop in New Orleans and a postproduction visit planned to Mount St. Helens. The producers chose Pennsylvania, one of them, Nick Wechsler, explained, because it’s one of the many states that give tax breaks and rebates to film companies and, not incidentally, because it offered such a pleasing array of post-apocalyptic scenery: deserted coalfields, run-down parts of Pittsburgh, windswept dunes. Chris Kennedy, the production designer, even discovered a burned-down amusement park in Lake Conneaut and an eight-mile stretch of abandoned freeway, complete with tunnel, ideal for filming the scene where the father and son who are the story’s main characters are stalked by a cannibalistic gang traveling by truck.
There appears to be a minor expanding of some scenes from the book. The flashbacks that The Father has of his Wife in the story will be enlarged, hence the reason Charlize Theron was cast in that role. I figured this would be the case once they choose such a big name actress for the part.
Robert Duvall will indeed play a dying man alongside the road, while Guy Pearce is another father leading his family around.
Finally, the main focus of the story by McCarthy is the boy and his father trying to find hope in a post-apocalyptic world. Mortensen hit on that with this quote from the article:
“It’s a love story that’s also an endurance contest,” he explained, and quickly added: “I mean that in a positive way. They’re on this difficult journey, and the father is basically learning from the son. So if the father-son thing doesn’t work, then the movie doesn’t work. The rest of it wouldn’t matter. It would never be more than a pretty good movie. But with Kodi in it, it has a chance to be an extremely good movie, maybe even a great one.”
I really, really hope so.
[NY Times]
Me too. It sounds really interesting (coming from someone who hasn’t read the book and doesn’t know the details of the story).
I’m trying so hard not to get too excited about this movie for fear it will disappoint based on the book (which is usually the case), but I really hope it’s as good as it looks so far.
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I hope they don’t take too much creative liberty with material prior to the events in the book. Is McCarthy a consultant on this film? All the Pretty Horses I heard was a good movie and No Country for Old Men was good.
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Nope, they credit him as the writer of the novel, but John Penhall is penning the adaptation and screenplay.
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