Into The Wild With National Geographic Adventure

It's National Geographic Adventure's turn to take a look at the new Sean Penn film Into The Wild based on the classic book of the same name by Jon Krakauer. There has been a steady stream of publicity for the film in the outdoor and adventure magazines of late, and this is just the latest look at the film.

Adventure interviews Penn himself about why he wanted to make this film, and covers the long process of bringing the story of Chris McCandless to the big screen. A process that has taken 11 years, and has seen a number of incarnations. The article notes that Krakauer and McCandless' family decided that they would not share the rights to the story with any filmmaker unless all of them agreed it was the right person for the job. Obviously they all felt that Penn was the right man.

Into the Wild tells Chris' story as a wanderer who hitchhiked across the country, after giving up his money and most of his other material possession. Along the way, he met a number of unique and interesting characters who had an impact on his life. Eventually, the young man made his way to Alaska, where he intended to wander "into the wild" to live of the land and become more in touch with the World. He ended up dying, alone, in the wilderness. Later, his body was discovered, along with a diary that he kept, which formed the basis of Krakauer's book.

The film is set to be released tomorrow, Sept. 21st, but it seems to be in a very limited release. I do not see it scheduled to come to my city (Austin, TX) at the moment. I was hoping to get a chance to see the film soon, and post my thoughts on it, but I guess I'll just have to be patient. I will say that the IMDB post for the movie has about 230 votes right now, and it's averaging a score of 8.9, which is VERY HIGH for that site. So, if it is playing in your town this weekend, and you get a chance to see it, post your thoughts in the comments section. I'm eager to here what the general consensus is.

Update: Regular reader Azzfan from The Caffeinated Blog has posted a comment saying that she saw Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch (He's playing Chris McCandless) and Jon Krakauer on Oprah. Penn revealed that the movie would go into wide release on Oct. 5th.