Kristen Stewart goes 'On the Road'

LONDON -- Kristen Stewart, Sam Riley and Garrett Hedlund are walking the line for Walter Salles' long-anticipated big-screen adaptation of Jack Kerouac's "On the Road."

Shooting is set to begin in August on the $25 million production, backers said Thursday.

Salles producer partner Rebecca Yeldham is teaming with French production banner MK2, which snapped up the rights and will produce the pic in collaboration with Film4 in the U.K. and Videofilmes in Brazil.

Salles traveled across the U.S. in Kerouac's footsteps to work out the adaptation, filming a documentary on the search for "On the Road" as part of his preparation.

Oscar-nominated scribe Jose Rivera ("The Motorcycle Diaries") has penned the adaptation for Salles.

Stewart will play Dean Moriarty's incandescent on-and-off wife Marylou, while Riley will star as Kerouac's alter ego Sal Paradise. Hedlund has been cast as Moriarty.

"We are enormously proud to be collaborating on one of the last great cinematographic adventures of the 20th century to be brought to the screen," MK2 execs Nathanael Karmitz and Charles Gillibert said.

Kerouac's cult novel of youth and freedom was first published in 1957 and has sold several million copies all over the world.
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