In Richard Brautigan’s moving 1971 story “I Was Trying To Describe You to Someone,” the narrator describes seeing “a fantastic movie” that “excited me like listening to ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ or seeing photographs of President Roosevelt or hearing him on the radio.” Can a long-awaited film adaptation of his work measure up? Viewers may finally get the chance to find out.
Oscar-nominated director Yorgos Lanthimos (The Favourite) is set to direct an adaptation of Brautigan’s 1974 novel, The Hawkline Monster: A Gothic Western, and The Favourite’s co-screenwriter, Tony McNamara—also an Academy Award nominee—is currently in talks to write it, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Poet and novelist Brautigan was most famous for his 1967 novella, Trout Fishing in America, and his off-kilter, sometimes surrealistic style gained him a devoted following, particularly among members of the counterculture. His later novels included multiple genre pastiches, including The Hawkline Monster, which tells the story of two Western gunfighters in 1902 who take a job hunting down the titular creature, which allegedly lives in caves beneath a mansion where twin sisters live (both called “Miss Hawkline”).
The production company New Regency acquired the film rights to the book last year, as Deadline reported at the time, after multiple failed attempts by others to bring it to screen. In the 1970s and ’80s, such cinematic luminaries as Harold and Maude director Hal Ashby and Batman director Tim Burton were involved with the project, as well as Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman, Jeff Bridges, Beau Bridges, and Clint Eastwood, who were attached to star in the film at various points. No potential actors have been named for the current iteration in development.
Brautigan’s final published novel during his lifetime was 1982’s So the Wind Won’t Blow It All Away; he committed suicide two years later. Another novel, An Unfortunate Woman, was published posthumously in 2000 and received a Kirkus Star. The author’s only child, Ianthe Brautigan, published You Can’t Catch Death: A Daughter’s Memoir that same year; she’s set to be an executive producer on the new film.
David Rapp is the senior Indie editor.
