We'll say this — Reese Witherspoon sure knows how to choose 'em. Earlier this year writer/director Lisa Cholodenko ("The Kids Are All Right") told us that she would be writing and directing an adaptation of Cheryl Strayed's "Wild: From Lost To Found On The Pacific Crest Trail" for producer Reese Witherspoon. Well, it seems the Cholodenko is no longer involved, but another strong writer is now set to tackle the material.
Deadline reports that Nick Hornby ("An Education," "About A Boy," "High Fidelity") will adapt the book that tells the true story of a woman's 1,100-mile solo hike in the wake of personal tragedy, including the death of her mother and the collapse of her marriage. Despite not being experienced, she completed the journey and rebuilt her life as well. While we had heard rumblings of Witherspoon also starring in the movie, she's not attached in that capacity just yet, and given it's about a woman in her early 20s, we don't think that will happen. Here's the Amazon synopsis:
A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again.
At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother's death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State—and to do it alone. She had no experience as a long-distance hiker, and the trail was little more than “an idea, vague and outlandish and full of promise.” But it was a promise of piecing back together a life that had come undone.
Strayed faces down rattlesnakes and black bears, intense heat and record snowfalls, and both the beauty and loneliness of the trail. Told with great suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild vividly captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.
Sounds interesting, and not only that, as an Oprah Book Club selection, it already has a built in audience ready to go for this one. A movie in the vein of "Into The Wild" or "127 Hours" with a female lead and a script from Hornby? We can only imagine studio execs will be watching this one closely.
I wonder if Witherspoon will do a sex scene for this film or if they will water down all the sex in it. I always assumed that she would only produce this film and let someone else star, but she seems pretty hellbent on doing it. I don't see anyway around the sex scenes in the book though. After the death of her mother her character has many affairs with lots of men that destroys her marriage. This is part of her downward spiral. Her character also has a sex scene on a beach in broad daylight while she's on the trail. I don't see how those aren't addressed since they play an important part in the overall story. I agree that they could just make the character 30ish and that could work and I agree that this could be her best, most challenging, role in a long time. But i'm not sure it could work without the sex though or whether she'd be willing to do that.
"Wild" is an excellent book….I'm reading it now, and damn, I picture Jennifer Lawrence playing Cheryl Strayed. Strayed is blonde, athletic, 22 and very down to earth. An excellent actress like Lawrence could nail this role.
someone's going to complain about Reese Witherspoon in 3… 2… 1…