The Rum Diary

THE ART OF ADAPTATION

The Story
Fresh out of the Air Force and a stint as a copy boy at "Time Magazine," future Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson moved down to San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1960, briefly worked at the soon-to-fold sporting magazine "El Sportivo," and unsuccessfully pursued a job at the "San Juan Star." The people he met and the experiences he had in Puerto Rico inspired him to write "The Rum Diary," which remained unpublished for decades. In the 1990s, Johnny Depp, Thompson's close friend, accidentally discovered the manuscript for "The Rum Diary" while visiting Thompson's house in Woody Creek. That same night they decided to publish the novel and adapt it into a film.  Bruce Robinson, the director of Withnail & I", was brought out of retirement by Depp to write the script as well as direct the film. Their version of The Rum Diary is both a labor of love and a clear-eyed tribute to Thompson.
"I felt Hunter with me throughout the shoot," says Depp. "It was great to be close to him again, in that sense; it was great to have him around me. I knew what he would say in every circumstance.  I just knew, because I knew him very well.  If he'd seen the finished film, he'd be whooping.  He'd be making those Hunter noises that anyone close to Hunter knew.  They meant, 'Yes man, we've done it! Fantastic!' He would have been celebrating.  Ultimately, the film is a celebration of Hunter, his language and his discovery of his voice. He'd be super happy, I'm sure."

Based on the debut novel by Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary tells the increasingly unhinged story of itinerant journalist Paul Kemp (Johnny Depp). Tiring of the noise and madness of New York and the crushing conventions of late Eisenhower-era America, Kemp travels to the pristine island of Puerto Rico to write for a local newspaper, The San Juan Star, run by downtrodden editor Lotterman (Richard Jenkins). Adopting the rum-soaked life of the island, Paul soon becomes obsessed with Chenault (Amber Heard), the wildly attractive Connecticut-born fiancée of Sanderson (Aaron Eckhart). Sanderson, a businessman involved in shady property development deals, is one of a growing number of American entrepreneurs who are determined to convert Puerto Rico into a capitalist paradise in service of the wealthy. When Kemp is recruited by Sanderson to write favorably about his latest unsavory scheme, the journalist is presented with a choice: to use his words for the corrupt businessmen's financial benefit, or use them to take the bastards down.
Writer/director Bruce Robinson (Academy Award nominated screenwriter of The Killing Fields, and director of the cult movie Withnail & I) directs from his screenplay based on the original novel by Thompson.

Author
Hunter S. Thompson was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, and is best known as the godfather of Gonzo Journalism.  Thompson's books include Hell's Angels, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, The Great Shark Hunt, The Curse of Lono, Songs of the Doomed, Better than Sex, Generation of Swine, The Proud Highway, The Rum Diary, Fear and Loathing in America, Screwjack, The Kingdom of Fear, Hey Rube, and Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone. Hunter died in 2005.

Writer-director
Bruce Robinson was nominated for an Academy Award as well as a Golden Globe for his screenplay The Killing Fields.  The powerful story of the New York Times journalist, Sidney Schanberg, and his Cambodian translator Dith Pran.  That script also won a WGA Award and a BAFTA Award, but cult success was to come a couple of years later when he wrote and directed Withnail & I, the comedy of bad manners in late 1960s London which is now considered the gold standard of its genre. Robinson also directed and wrote the subversive satire How to Get Ahead in Advertising.  His other screenplay credits include In Dreams, and Fat Man and Little Boy.
Born in London, Robinson got his start in acting after training at London's Central School of Speech and Drama.  He has also appeared in a dozen films including Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet, Ken Russell's The Music Lovers, and Francois Truffaut's The Story of Adele H.
Other writing credits include the novel, The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman, which he is currently developing into a feature film.  Robinson has also collaborated with his wife, on two children's books, Harold and the Duck, and The Obvious Elephant written by him, and illustrated by his wife, Sophie Windham.

Co-producer/ 1st Assistant Director
Peter Kohn reunites with director Bruce Robinson on The Rum Diary. They first worked together on Withnail & I, and again on How To Get Ahead in Advertising. The Rum Diary marks his debut as a co-producer. Kohn has had a prolific career as lst assistant director and associate producer.
Most recently, he was assistant director on Ridley Scott's Body of Lies, Rendition,  and acted as associate producer and assistant director on Blades of Glory.
Kohn's association with Johnny Depp began on the first of Gore Verbinski's swashbuckling adventure films Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.  He went on to work with Depp on Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.
Kohn's other credits as lst assistant director/associate producer include The Manchurian Candidate, Air Force One, and as lst assistant director K-PAX, The Devil's Own" Beloved, Outbreak, The Road to Wellville, The Pelican Brief, and In The Line of Fire.

Adapting "The Rum Diary"
"The Rum Diary" had lain forgotten in Thompson's basement for many years and if not for a fateful visit by Johnny Depp to Thompson's house, the novel may have never been published. "I came across The Rum Diary with Hunter, almost accidentally," Depp relates.  "We were in his house in Woody Creek downstairs in what was called The War Room, and there were just these endless boxes of stuff. I didn't know what they were, so I started just pulling things out. I stumbled upon what was called 'The Rum Diary' and he goes, 'Oh Jesus, yeah, I wrote that in 1959,' and I said, 'Jesus Christ, let's read this, let's see what it's about.'  So we get it out, started reading it.  He said, 'Maybe I should finally publish it.' I was like, 'Yeah you should publish it, it's great.'''
By that time, however, Thompson's style had considerably developed from his early writing and returning to his young voice was a challenge. Deborah Fuller, who was Thompson's secretary for 23 years, recalls, "When it came time to publish "The Rum Diary," an editor from Simon and Schuster worked with Hunter, but they really had to control him. He had evolved into a whole new writer, and he was embarrassed about some of it and wanted to change it. We all told him that was crazy. He wrote it when he was about twenty. To change it and make this young man's novel more like his later Gonzo-style would have ruined the flavor."
Before Thompson had even begun prepping the book to finally see the light of day, a movie adaptation was already cooking in his and Depp's minds.  "From that [first] conversation," Depp says, "within about 20 minutes we were already talking about the movie rights and how we should produce this film together."
Thompson died in 2005, too soon to see The Rum Diary brought to the big screen. Producer Graham King wanted to make sure that his legacy would be preserved with the film. "The film is a tribute to Hunter. It was amazing to have the opportunity to get involved in one of his stories, and who better to work with than Johnny Depp?"
Depp had been a long-time fan of director Bruce Robinson and initially approached him to direct another Hunter S. Thompson adaptation. "I met Johnny Depp about twenty years ago because of my first film, Withnail & I " recalls Robinson "We got together in London. He asked me if I would direct Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. At the time I had decided that I didn't really want to direct again. However, if I did, it would only be from a script I had written. By that time, it was too late; the screenplay had already been written."
Depp was determined to have Robinson and Thompson's creative spirits eventually cross. As he puts it, "Bruce was always somehow in the back of my mind, and when The Rum Diary came up I said, 'what about Bruce Robinson?' Hunter said, 'That's the ticket, man.'  Hunter was truly into it, especially the fact that we had to get Bruce out of retirement!" Graham King agrees: "Withnail & I is one of my favorite movies. I knew Bruce and Johnny would make a very magical team."
"Then later, Johnny sent me a copy of 'The Rum Diary' and asked if I would be interested in adapting it into a screenplay," says Robinson. "It was a nightmare at first. I couldn't see how it could be adapted as a film as it has two lead characters, Yeamon and Kemp. It was a long time before I realized what Hunter had actually done, which was to split himself down the middle into two characters. When I realized Yeamon was just a facet of Kemp, one of them had to go. Once I had solved that problem, I could see a way to write it, and decided to have a go."
Depp recalls Robinson's epiphany with equal enthusiasm. "Finally it came to him, which none of us ever recognized. Weirdly, Hunter said something to me years before that I hadn't remembered. Early on, Hunter had said, 'I should have you know I should have made these guys one, I should have made them me--but I made them both me.' That's what Bruce did.  He had the instinct to make that happen." 
"The way I approached the adaptation of 'The Rum Diary' was to absorb what the book was, and then rewrite it," Robinson says. "There are only three lines that Hunter wrote in the whole script. I wasn't trying to copy him. You can't because he was so unique, but hopefully, I was writing in his vernacular." Depp says that is exactly what Thompson wanted all along. "Bruce definitely went off page in terms of the book, but Hunter wanted to.  He always wanted to. Hunter even talked to me about maybe taking this story to Cuba!"
In addition to combining the characters of Kemp and Yeamon into one, the screenplay departs from the book in the way it deals with the representation of Puerto Rico. "That's a fundamental change in the movie, because the whole film is in support of the underdog side of Puerto Rico," says Robinson. "It's critical of the people who have come there to make a fast buck. Sanderson's approach is almost like the old-time British imperialists, who pillaged a country for what they could get and then moved on."
It took Robinson about five to six months to write the screenplay. "When I got the word back that they were going to make it, I was thrilled," says Robinson. "However, when they asked me to direct it, I wasn't, because I didn't want to," he laughs. "After the last unmentionable film I directed, I was really determined that I would never do it again. I don't like being in the public eye. I much prefer being locked in a room with a typewriter doing what I do, which is to write. So it wouldn't have been difficult to say no, but because I liked the script myself, and because it was for Johnny, whom I like enormously, I thought I would give it a shot."
King couldn't have been more pleased with Robinson's return to the director's chair. "He's got such an easygoing, come-what-may attitude behind the monitor. The DP was actually saying, 'Maybe you should try this,' and Bruce said 'No, I've got it. I've got what I need. The movie's in my head, so I know in the edit room I'm not going to be using this scene; why are we going to shoot it?'  That's music to a producer's ears!  He commanded that crew so well. He's such a soft spoken, gentle guy. Everyone loved and respected him."
Robinson first became a fan of Hunter S. Thompson's work in the early seventies.  "My flat-mate flung a book at me and told me to read it," recalls Robinson. "It was "Fear and Loathing." I am not making comparisons, but I thought, 'Jesus Christ, this guy is the kind of writer I want to be.' I became an enormous fan because he spoke to my generation. He had managed to break out of the sterility of political coverage that had become so used to deference and innuendo, rather than the truth."
"Hunter went in there roaring and raging," Robinson says. "He always seemed like a hip Orwell to me. He spoke those same truths that I perceived in Orwell. He would always go for the jugular. I write quite a lot of political stuff myself and it's an area that fascinates me. Hunter was a past master of the performance of the political and that's what I always loved about him."
"The thing that I initially connected with in regard to Hunter's work was his honesty," Depp says. "You read about these amazing experiences and you think, 'That's bullshit, it's his imagination,' but when you've lived with him, really spent time with him as I have, you realize that it's all really true and more."
For both Depp and Robinson, the core of The Rum Diary was the film serving as an origin story for Thompson. "It's before Hunter became Hunter, or rather, it's before Hunter Thompson became Dr. Hunter S. Thompson," says Depp. "You start to see and feel and understand the elements that lead him to become Raoul Duke in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."
"There is a line in the movie where [Paul Kemp] says, 'I've got no voice, I don't know how to write like myself,'" says Robinson. "Although he is a writer, we never see him hitting the keys of a typewriter until the last fifteen minutes of the movie. That's when he has found his voice. Found his inimitable rage."
Graham King found the humor and adventurousness to be among the most enticing aspects of the story. "People talk to me about it and they say, 'This is going to be a dark story.' It's very Hunter and they go back to Fear and Loathing, but that's not what this story is. It's a lot of fun, it's a fantastic ride!"