Dallas Buyers Club director adapting true story, starring Reese Witherspoon.

Fox Searchlight Pictures has announced that director Jean-Marc Vallée began principal photography in Oregon this week on Wild.

The film stars Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon. The screenplay is adapted by Nick Hornby (An Education) from author Cheryl Strayed’s eponymous bestseller. 

Pacific Standard’s Witherspoon and Bruna Papandrea are producing with River Road Entertainment’s Bill Pohlad.  Executive producers are Hornby, Bergen Swanson and Nathan Ross, Vallée’s producing partner.

Joining the cast are Thomas Sadoski, Michiel Huisman, W. Earl Brown, Gaby Hoffman and Kevin Rankin. 

The film will shoot on location in Oregon and California.

Witherspoon will play Cheryl Strayed, who decides to hikes more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail following a series of personal tragedies.

“I am truly honored to have the opportunity to bring Cheryl Strayed’s amazing journey to life on film, and to work with Pacific Standard, River Road Entertainment, Fox Searchlight, and Reese,” said Vallée.

“There is so much naked honesty to her book, so much humanity. And I can say the same about Nick Hornby’s screenplay: a page turner. I couldn’t put it down. So emotional. So unique. This tale is not just set in the ‘wild’, it’s about the ‘wild’ in all of us.”

In a joint statement, Witherspoon and Papandrea said: “Nick Hornby’s script about Cheryl Strayed’s 1,100 mile trek through largely untouched wilderness captures the poignancy and spirit of the life-altering journey that the author lived 18 years ago. 

“Having Cheryl available to us here in Oregon is invaluable… her spirit, her presence, and her input on the physical and emotional details of her trek are a gift to the production.”

Vallée will reunite with director of photography Yves Bélanger, production designer John Paino, editor Martin Pensa and visual effects supervisor Marc Côté,  who all collaborated with the director on Dallas Buyers Club, starring Matthew McConaughey.

The production will be overseen by Fox Searchlight Pictures president of production Claudia Lewis, svp of production David Greenbaum and director of production DanTran Nguyen.

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