Kristen Stewart is joining Walter Salles’ (The Motorcycle Diaries) upcoming adaptation of Jack Kerouac's On the RoadUSA Today (via The Playlist) reports that Stewart announced her involvement with the film after telling the newspaper that "I am very much attached to a movie that has been trying to get made forever. Not that this is going to help it, but maybe I can just brag a little bit. I am super excited about it, too. I am about to play Marylou in On the Road. So that's a big deal."

Seeing Garrett Hedlund (Tron Legacy) get cast as On The Road’s Dean Moriarity and now Stewart as Marylou, his young wife, is a great sign for fans of the novel who have been anticipating a film forever now.  Various directors, including Francis Ford Coppola, have tried to make a film based on Jack Kerouac’s beloved 1957 novel for the past 30 years with no luck.   Walter Salles seems to have figured it out though since filming is set to start this summer.  More info on On the Road after the jump.

If you want to know a bit more about On the Road, here’s the review from Publishers Weekly:

“Fans of Kerouac get the whole beautiful, groovy deal with this new recording of the radically hip novel that many consider the heart of the Beat movement. Poetic, open and raw, Kerouac’s prose lays out a cross-country adventure as experienced by Sal Paradise, an autobiographical character. A writer holed up in a room at his aunt’s house, Paradise gets inspired by Dean Moriarty (a character based on Kerouac’s friend Neal Cassady) to hit the road and see America. From the moment he gets on the seven train out of New York City, he takes the reader through the highs and lows of hitchhiking, bonding with fellow explorers and opting for beer before food. First published in 1957, Kerouac’s perennially hot story continues to express the restless energy and desire for freedom that makes people rush out to see the world. The tale is only improved by Dillon’s well-paced, articulate reading as he voices the flow of images and graveled reality of Paradise’s search for the edge.”

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