Big Sur is an upcoming film, based on the autobiographical novel Big Sur

Big Sur (novel)

Big Sur is a 1962 novel by Jack Kerouac. It recounts the events surrounding Kerouac's three brief sojourns to a cabin in Bixby Canyon, Big Sur, owned by Kerouac's friend and Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti...

by Beat Generation

Beat generation

The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...

 poet and novelist Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac

Jean-Louis "Jack" Lebris de Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic...

. The director is independent filmmaker

Independent film

An independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...

 Michael Polish. The film was in post-production

Post-production

Post-production is part of filmmaking and the video production process. It occurs in the making of motion pictures, television programs, radio programs, advertising, audio recordings, photography, and digital art...

 as of August 2011.

Casting and production

The cast includes Josh Lucas

Josh Lucas

Josh Lucas is an American actor. He has appeared in many films, including Glory Road, A Beautiful Mind, and Poseidon.-Early life:...

 as Neal Cassady

Neal Cassady

Neal Leon Cassady was a major figure of the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the psychedelic movement of the 1960s. He served as the model for the character Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road....

, Kate Bosworth

Kate Bosworth

Catherine Ann "Kate" Bosworth is an American actress. Bosworth starred in the television series Young Americans, in which she played Bella Banks. She became known with a leading role in 2002's Blue Crush. The following year, Bosworth played the teenage girlfriend of porn star John Holmes in...

, Radha Mitchell

Radha Mitchell

Radha Rani Amber Indigo Anunda Mitchell is an Australian actress. Her film roles include Finding Neverland, Phone Booth, Man on Fire, Silent Hill, and the The Crazies-Early life:...

 as Carolyn Cassady

Carolyn Cassady

Carolyn Elizabeth Robinson Cassady is an American writer associated with the Beat Generation through her marriage to Neal Cassady and her friendships with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and other prominent Beat figures...

, Henry Thomas

Henry Thomas

Henry Jackson Thomas, Jr. is an American actor and musician. He has appeared in more than 40 films and is best known for his role as Elliott in the 1982 Steven Spielberg film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.-Early life:...

 as Philip Whalen

Philip Whalen

Philip Glenn Whalen was an American poet, Zen Buddhist, and a key figure in the San Francisco Renaissance and close to the Beat generation.-Biography:...

, Anthony Edwards

Anthony Edwards

Anthony Charles Edwards is an American actor and director. He has appeared in various movies and television shows, including Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Top Gun, Zodiac, Revenge of the Nerds, Northern Exposure and ER.-Early life:Edwards was born in Santa Barbara, California, the son of Erika...

 as Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Lawrence Ferlinghetti is an American poet, painter, liberal activist, and the co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers...

, Balthazar Getty

Balthazar Getty

Balthazar Getty is an American film actor and member of the band Ringside. He is known for the roles of Thomas Grace on the American action drama Alias and Tommy Walker on the ABC drama Brothers & Sisters.-Early life:...

 as Michael McClure

Michael McClure

Michael McClure is an American poet, playwright, songwriter, and novelist. After moving to San Francisco as a young man, he found fame as one of the five poets who read at the famous San Francisco Six Gallery reading in 1955 rendered in barely fictionalized terms in Jack Kerouac's Dharma Bums...

, Patrick Fischler

Patrick Fischler

Patrick Fischler is an American actor best known for his roles as Jimmy Barrett on the drama series Mad Men, Dharma Initiative worker Phil on the drama series Lost and Detective Kenny No-Gun on the police drama Southland...

 as Lew Welch

Lew Welch

Lewis Barrett Welch, Jr. was an American poet associated with the Beat generation of poets, artists, and iconoclasts.Welch published and performed widely during the 1960s...

, Stana Katic

Stana Katic

Stana Katic is a film and television actress. She is best known for her portrayal of Detective Kate Beckett in ABC's Castle.- Early life :...

 as Lenore Kandel

Lenore Kandel

Lenore Kandel was an American poet.Kandel was briefly notorious as the author of a short book of poetry, The Love Book...

, and Jean-Marc Barr

Jean-Marc Barr

Jean-Marc Barr is a French-American film actor and director. His mother is French. His American father was in the US Air Force and served in the Second World War. Jean-Marc Barr is primarily known as an actor, but is also a film director, screenwriter and producer...

 as Kerouac. The novel uses pseudonyms for the main characters, with the film using the writers' real names.

Much of the filming was in Monterey County, California

Monterey County, California

Monterey County is a county located on the Pacific coast of the U.S. state of California, its northwestern section forming the southern half of Monterey Bay. The northern half of the bay is in Santa Cruz County. As of 2010, the population was 415,057. The county seat and largest city is Salinas...

, including Big Sur

Big Sur

Big Sur is a sparsely populated region of the Central Coast of California where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from the Pacific Ocean. The name "Big Sur" is derived from the original Spanish-language "el sur grande", meaning "the big south", or from "el país grande del sur", "the big...

, where the events of the novel took place.