A week before it premieres in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, On The Road has been acquired by AMC Networks. Picking up all U.S. rights to Walter Salles’ adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s Beat Generation classic, AMC Networks announced that its distribution labels IFC Films and Sundance Selects will release the film later this fall in theaters. The deal is estimated to be in the seven figures. Twilight star Kristen Stewart signed up in 2010 to play Marylou, the wife of the restless and free-spirited Dean Moriarty played by TRON: Legacy’s Garrett Hedlund. The film also stars Sam Riley, Kirsten Dunst Amy Adams, Tom Sturridge, Danny Morgan, Alice Braga, Elisabeth Moss and Viggo Mortensen. The screenplay is by Jose Rivera who worked with Salles on the director’s other roadtrip, 2004’s The Motorcycle Diaries. An On The Road film had been a long-term project of Francis Ford Coppola, who has been working on bringing Kerouac’s novel to the screen since 1978. Coppola serves as Executive Producer. The MK2 Production was produced by Nathanael Karmitz, Charles Gillibert, Rebecca Yeldham and Roman Coppola for American Zoetrope. Arianna Bocco, SVP of Acquisitions & Productions for Sundance Selects/IFC Films negotiated AMC’s purchase of On The Road with Cinetic Media’s Bart Walker for the producers.

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