Once free of those commitments, Depp heavily promoted his pet project, including a college tour at UC Berkeley, the University of Texas at Austin and Columbia University. The Rum Diary was completed in 2009, but the release was delayed until Octoso that Depp was free from his responsibilities to Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and also the production of Dark Shadows. Warner Independent was going to distribute the movie stateside, but Warner Bros closed the division down and King had The Rum Diary distributed through his short lived distribution company FilmDistrict. GK also handled global pre-sales, which sold very well and covered the majority of the picture’s expenses. The budget for The Rum Diary was $45 million and it was financed by GK Films. Depp’s production company Infinitum Nihil had initially landed a first-look deal with King in 2004. This kicked off a series of films Graham King and Depp would collaborate on - The Tourist, Rango, Dark Shadows and both produced Hugo. Two years later in 2007, Graham King’s GK Films took the novel rights and committed to finance the production. Robinson had sworn off directing since his miserable experience on the butchered Jennifer Eight (1992), but Depp was a huge admirer of his cult masterpieces Withnail & I and How to Get Ahead in Advertising and gave him the freedom to make the picture. Thompson penned a letter to Shooting Gallery president of production Holly Sorensen that began with: “Okay, you lazy bitch, I’m getting tired of this waterhead f-ckaround that you’re doing with The Rum Diary.” Shortly after his rant, FilmEngine acquired the rights in February 2002, but The Rum Diary languished in development through Hunter’s suicide in 2005.Īfter Thompson’s death, Depp courted filmmaker Bruce Robinson to write and direct The Rum Diary. Shooting Gallery and SPI Films optioned the theatrical rights to the novel in 2000, despite not having the capital to actually mount the production and that brought the ire of the Good Doctor. Thompson’s The Rum Diary was written in 1959 but not published until 1998, when Johnny Depp discovered the lost manuscript while shadowing Thompson for his role in Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas (1998). Cast: Johnny Depp, Aaron Eckhart, Amber Heard, Giovanni Ribisi.He never would’ve published that twenty years before.” The book sold well but Thompson was disappointed, calling it "the sloppiest job of Book Publishing I've ever seen. His assistant, Lynn Nesbit, explained: “ The Rum Diary came out when it did because he needed money, absolutely. Thompson had always felt it was too weak to sell, but now he needed money. When it was published in 1998, The Rum Diary was billed as "The Long Lost Novel" but it had never in fact been lost. Wills explains in High White Notes: The Rise and Fall of Gonzo Journalism that the original manuscript, as well as the 1990s excerpts, were "littered with" racial epithets and racist depictions, but that these had almost all been removed by the time it was released as a book. In these excerpts, it is possible to see how the manuscript was changed before its final publication. Parts of the novel were published in 1990 in Thompson's collection, Songs of the Doomed. After missing various deadlines, he gave up on The Rum Diary until 1998, when it was finally published. However, he felt that the more time passed, the more difficult it was to write about an increasingly distant era. Thompson finished a draft of The Rum Diary in the early sixties but continued to work on it throughout that decade, ultimately selling it to Random House after they agreed to publish his first book, Hell's Angels. "I still can't beat that goddamn Gatsby." Thompson himself stated that he wanted to write the Great American Novel. The narrative uses a highly paced and rather exciting style, also typical of Thompson's oeuvre. The prominent characters are typical of Thompson's work: violent, maniacal and alcoholic, stumbling through life. While in Puerto Rico, Thompson befriended many of the writers at the Star, providing the context for The Rum Diary 's fictional storyline.Īlthough Thompson wrote his narrative at the age of 22, it deals extensively with a fear of "going over the hill" and growing old. Thompson had unsuccessfully applied to work at the larger English-language daily called The San Juan Star which novelist William J.
Thompson himself travelled from New York to San Juan in 1960 to write for an ill-fated sports newspaper on the island of Puerto Rico. Set in the late 1950s, the novel encompasses a tangled love story involving jealousy, treachery and violent alcoholic lust among the Americans who staff the newspaper.
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