Hey folks,

So I was just browsing Amazon.co.uk and I came across this – The Rum Diary: Based on the novel by Hunter S. Thompson. The author is listed as Bruce Robinson and it is 160 pages in length, due to be published by Vintage on September 1st 2011. What really caught my eye though is the synopsis:

It’s 1960. In a highrise hotel not far from the beaches of San Juan, a man is recovering from an animal of a hangover. Paul Kemp is an alcoholic journalist who’s barely seen better days, arriving at the only job he can get: writing horoscopes for failing rag El News. His fellow hacks are mostly crazy drunks on the verge of quitting, so Kemp fits in perfectly. But then he meets the impossibly gorgeous Chenault and her flashy boyfriend Sanderson. Kemp soon finds himself in way over his head, party to shady business deals, caught up in car chases with enraged Puerto Ricans, and experimenting with a hitherto unknown hallucinogen, which will eventually transform Kemp into the kind of journalist known to the world as Gonzo.

Two things – you can pretty much take the above as the plot of the film and having read a 2006 draft of the script it matches it perfectly. Secondly I noticed that this was put up last week on Amazon with a release date of next October. It was then pulled, before reappearing with this new release date. Sources have also indicated that the Dutch release date for the move, Nov. 2010, has now been put back to 2011. The Russian release date also appears to have been put back until 2011.

Damn, damn, damn.

R

UPDATE: The movie tie-in of The Rum Diary is still listed as having a September 2010 release. The UK release date for the movie is still slated as being September 2010. Not sure what to make of all this now to be honest. Amazon have been proven in the past to be incorrect with release dates. I guess we will have to be patient and see what happens.