Robert Redford Takes ‘A Walk in the Woods’ to the Big Screen

Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods is perhaps my favorite hiking/camping book of all time. Few books actually make me laugh out loud, but Bryson’s hilarious prose leaps off the page and begs to be read.

A Walk “chronicles — in typically droll fashion — Bryson’s attempts to hike the Appalachian Trail with a friend. (We don’t want to spoil the ending for you, but the trail is 2,100 miles long, and neither Bryson nor his hiking companion were young men at the time of their trip.)”

According to Rotten Tomatoes, after a ten year debate of whether or not to actually produce the film, Robert Redford is finally ready to move forward with his adaptation of the bestselling book. Barry Levinson is set to direct, with Redford himself playing the role of Bryson.

Like any book-to-film adaptation, it’s always a hit-or-miss proposition:

“Settling on a script now becomes the issue for Redford, who is no stranger to the pitfalls of literary adaptations; he spent years in an ultimately ill-fated attempt to bring Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance to the screen.”

Not to mention the whole writer’s strike has Hollywood production in limbo. But for Bryson fans, it’s great news nevertheless.