By Jake Coyle, The Associated Press
If Batman and the X-Men get prequels, why not Hunter S. Thompson?
He was certainly a superhero of a kind, just one whose powers mainly consisted of consuming copious amounts of alcohol while still, somehow, churning out wildly colorful, raging dispatches from the road.
“The Rum Diary” is based on Thompson’s heavily autobiographical novel by the same name, which he wrote as a 22-year-old in the early 1960s after a stint as a newspaper reporter in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It wasn’t published until 1998. Since then, Thompson’s friend Johnny Depp (who also played Thompson in 1998’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”) has been trying to adapt “The Rum Diary” to the screen.
“The Rum Diary” — which is dedicated to Thompson, who died in 2005 — is essentially a portrait of the Duke as a young journalist. The stand-in for Thompson, the young novelist/reporter Paul Kemp (Depp), is trying to find his way and his writing voice: It’s the birth of Gonzo.