Coppola saw '' The Motorcycle Diaries '' and hired Brazilian director Walter Salles to direct the film . Salles was drawn to the novel because , according to him , it is about people " trying to break into a society that ’s impermeable " and that he wants " to deal with a generation that collides with its society . " At the end of 2008 , he was about to have the film greenlit when the American economy collapsed and French financier Pathe wanted to make significant cuts to the $ 35 million budget . Producer Rebecca Yeldham realized that they could not make the film Salles had originally envisioned . However , while talking to MK2 Productions in Paris about other potential films , they asked Salles if he had any passion projects . He told them about '' On the Road '' and at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival , MK2 greenlit production with a $ 25 million budget in association with Film4 in the U.K. , and Videofilmes in Brazil . In preparation for the film , he made the documentary '' Searching for On the Road '' , in which he took the same road trip as the lead character in the novel , Sal Paradise , and talked to Beat poets who knew Kerouac . He did this in order to understand " the complexity of the jazz-infused prose and the sociopolitical climate that informed the period . " Salles was occasionally joined by the film 's screenwriter Jose Rivera in addition to spending six months reading up on Kerouac . Rivera then began writing the screenplay , producing approximately 20 drafts . Later drafts relied less on the published book and more on the original manuscript , which had been typed on a 120-foot roll of paper and kept in all the real names
2010 Cannes Film Festival
2010 Cannes Film Festival
On the Road (2012 film)