Production
When the graphic novel Road to Perdition was written by Max Allan Collins, his agent saw potential in the story as a film adaptation and showed it to a film agent. By 1999, the novel reached Dean Zanuck, who was the vice president of development at his father's company, producer Richard D. Zanuck. The novel was sent to the elder Zanuck in Morocco, who was there producing Rules of Engagement (2000). The Zanucks agreed on the story's prospect and sent it to director-producer Steven Spielberg. Shortly afterward, Spielberg set up the project at his studio DreamWorks, though he did not pursue direction of the film due to his full slate.
Mendes sought a new project after completing American Beauty (1999), and explored prospects including A Beautiful Mind, K-PAX, The Shipping News, and The Lookout. DreamWorks sent Mendes Road to Perdition as a prospect. Mendes was attracted to the story, considering it "narratively very simple, but thematically very complex". One theme that he saw in the story was of the parents' world that is inaccessible to their children. Mendes considered the story's theme to be about how children deal with violence, and whether exposure to violence would render children violent themselves. Mendes described the script as having "no moral absolutes", a factor that appealed to the director.
Read more about this topic: Road To Perdition
Famous quotes containing the word production:
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