The Kentucky Derby & The Rum Diary

Depp Films Rum Diary

“When you’re sitting back
In your rose pink Cadillac
Making bets on Kentucky Derby day…”
--The Rolling Stones

Johnny Depp pays homage to old friend and fellow Louisville, Kentuckian, Hunter S. Thompson, by playing the lead role in the film The Rum Diary. The Rum Diary, Thompson’s fiction novel, published in 1998, is based on an American reporter working in Puerto Rico in the late 1950s.

Filming began last month in Puerto Rico, but talks of adapting the novel to film has been in discussion since 2000. This is the second the film Depp has acted in regarding a book based on Thompson’s work—the first being a hilarious Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas. Depp also participated in other Thompson-related projects such as the book Gonzo, the documentary Breakfast with Hunter and The Gonzo Tapes.

It’s only appropriate this weekend is the Kentucky Derby in the “dark & bloody ground” of Louisville, Kentucky, which inspired Thompson’s timeless story, “The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved.” Any predictions?

James Calemine
 

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