Earlier in our exclusive interview with director John Hillcoat, we discussed exactly what author Cormac McCarthy wanted put back into the film that was originally cut from John Hillcoat's translation. But strangely the writer had no issues with the missing scene from his novel where The Man and The Boy discover a baby being roasted over a fire. We found out just why, from the director...

People are asking why some of the cannibal scenes were cut from the film.

There were some definitely, that I wanted cut. I had to fight to cut them. And I was supported though. Because first of all, I fought like hell to make sure we had shot that stuff, and I got my way. Then I realized it didn't work, it was total overkill. It just made it redundant and didn't have any impact. Because once you go through the road game and the house, the cannibal house, you know about cannibalism. And the trees is the new element. Whereas if you go back to that, it's like going back to the start of the film again.

What was the reasoning for cutting the baby over the fire scene?

It also it all works in the book because it's in your head, when you visualize some of this stuff it just becomes too much. And it was overkill. Luckily, Cormac himself, he really understands how film works as a medium, how different it is. He didn't miss anything from the book other than four lines of dialogue... Just those four lines. Nothing else. He didn't miss any of it, he didn't even bring up the baby. He said, 'Oh, that's irrelevant.'

What did you think when you saw the first trailer for the film?

Well I was a little disappointed. I thought it was a little misleading. I would never put stock footage that isn't part of the film in something, like the trailer. But I also understand, from their point of view, what they were trying to do, which is give people context. Because their point was that most people haven't read the book that will come and see the movie. And in the film it's a very subtle, gradual thing that befalls [humanity], but it's never fully explained. So what they said is, that in when you have 30 seconds or a minute, this was their way of putting it into context for people. But it didn't work, they have a much better trailer now.

How do you walk the line of bleakness and hope that was in the book. It was a pretty bleak in some points, the book.

I never really saw it like that, for one. The heart and soul, the reason this book is now the most translated of modern time, apparently, is because of this love story between father and son. If it was just about that other stuff it wouldn't have struck that kind of chord. That's if you focus on the background scenery. I'm a little defensive about that. But sure, it's a projection of everyone's worst fear. The apocalypse has been around as an idea since ancient times.

It's very simple, it's humanity's worst fear. What is it? It's us dying, the world dying. And we saw what happened with the dinosaurs, so we don't want to join them, and that's understandable. But then I think, also, every individual has their own personal apocalypse, where your time comes. We're mortal beings, we have to check out. So I think in many ways it's just a projection of our fears. And it goes through different periods. In the 50s they were really freaked out about nuclear threats, so you had the mutant monsters that came out of radiation. A brilliant masterpiece of all apocalypse films is Dr. Strangelove. But again that came out of the whole nuclear situation, the Cold War. And you can see in ancient times, and the biblical apocalypse.

But that's also why it's not really about bleakness, it's about fear. And actually there's a morality tale about this. We see a man that we project on to, and we can see that his choices, under pressure, we see how he can, understandably, lose his humanity. And it's actually the boy that gives him back that humanity. So I'm with Cormac when he said that his was a book about human goodness and kindness.

Where do you think we are now with post-apocalyptic movies? What do you think the trend is now?

Well I mean the focus tends to be on the big event, so much so that there's no human dimension. I think that's all valid, I like to see spectacle, we all enjoy that. I like roller coaster rides, although I'm actually having trouble with them as I get older. But, there is thrills and adventure in The Road, but the focus as I say is more about this human experience. And really more, I love films where, what I love speaking in scifi, like I saw 2001 when I was 9 years old and I'll never forget I actually felt like I went into outer space - like I really felt like I was transported into this other world. And the more I watch films, the films that I love are those where you feel like you've gone to another place and that's what I love about scifi. When it's just a CGI fantasy or like a video game, that's when I kind of tune out of it. I don't feel like kind of, being transported.

So that's you comparing The Road to those other post-apocalyptic films coming out. Because we know the difference. But even when I was at the Book of Eli panel at Comic Con, people were asking, 'So how's this different from The Road?'

[Eyes widen] Well, ok, the big difference is also what we've tried to do is, well what I always try to do with genre, is find and make it fresh again, like something we've never seen. And ironically what we've never seen before is the real thing. And so that's why we shot at Mount St. Helens, the mountain blew up.

The Lost World (1925)

There have been many movie adaptations of Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel, but for our money, the original is still the best, thanks to some pretty amazing stop-motion animation showing dinosaurs trashing London. The groundbreaking special effects, by Willis O'Brien, gave rise to later classics like the original King Kong — and O'Brien trained Ray Harryhausen. This is also the only Lost World adaptation that Conan Doyle seems to have approved of personally. The whole thing is on Youtube, and here's the climax — skip to about 4:58 for the beginning of the dinosaur-rampage awesomeness.

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea

Sure, it's a Disney movie, and it's got Kirk Douglas singing "A Whale Of A Tale." But it also has James Mason's understated, creeptastic performance as Captain Nemo, full of subtle menace. And the special effects still look pretty breathtaking, even 55 years later. Most of all, it captures the wonder and boundless curiosity of Verne's book.

Fahrenheit 451

The original film version of Ray Bradbury's book-burning classic is a vivid, lurid masterpiece — I saw it as a kid, and it still sticks in my mind. But what did Bradbury think? He wrote, in the introduction to one edition of the novel:

And what do I think of the film?

I have heard those cries in the past of outraged authors whose books have just been gang-raped by a studio.

Such is not the case, luckily, with me.

I think that Truffaut has captured the soul and essence of the book. He has been careful and subtle in his shadings and motions. He has escaped making a technological James Bond film, and made, instead, the love story of, not a man and a woman, but a man and a library, a man and a book. An incredible love story indeed in this day when libraries, once more, are burning across the world.

I am very grateful.

Clockwork Orange

According to Wikipedia (although it's not sourced), original novelist Anthony Burgess felt Stanley Kubrick's film was brilliant — but almost too brilliant for our own safety. Whether Burgess really said that, he'll get no argument from the hordes of people who've loved this uncompromising, brutal look at hooligans and social control in a dystopian future. It's Kubrick at the top of his game, honoring and transforming the source material. (Note: We considered including 2001 as well, but since the book was written after the movie, we decided against.)

Blade Runner

Yes, this film takes some liberties with Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?" But it's also one of the best reflections of Dick's constant paranoia and flood-of-weirdness storytelling methods. And of course, Dick himself wrote an ecstatic letter praising this film's vision and his belief that it would re-energize science fiction altogether.

1984 (1984)

It was almost required that this year would see a movie based on the famous George Orwell novel. Thank goodness this one didn't commit the thought crime of bastardizing Orwell's story of a totalitarian society that controls its subjects with constant surveillance and "newspeak." It's worth tracking the director's cut DVD which restores Michael Radford's original bleak color pallette and the original orchestral score (with no Eurythmics.)

Bram Stoker's Dracula

Of all the Dracula films throughout the years, Francis Ford Coppola's version came closest to capturing the original novel's darkness, with Gary Oldman making for a captivating Dracula. The whole affair drips with sensuality, thanks to some incredibly beautiful designs. (Screencaps from DVDBeaver.)

Handmaid's Tale

This was a troubled production, in which the original director dropped out and screenwriter Harold Pinter washed his hands of the thing. That meant that original novelist Margaret Atwood, among others, stepped in to revise the screenplay. Despite the problems, the resulting film preserves the key themes of Atwood's novel, about a fundamentalist culture in which many women are infertile and the few fertile women are given to high-ranking couples to give birth to their heirs. More importantly, it's a harrowing, weird epic.

Lord Of The Rings

Peter Jackson takes some liberties with J.R.R. Tolkien's epic three-volume novel, but nobody would deny that the resulting movie trilogy really is epic, and really does convey just why so many of us fell in love with these books in the first place. The full-length DVD versions of all three movies will take you the better part of a day to watch, but it's an absorbing story and never loses the feeling of great events taking place.

Call Of Cthulhu

This 2005 silent movie comes the closest of all the many H.P. Lovecraft adaptations of doing a straight-up recreation of Lovecraft's world. The campiness and cheekiness are kept to a minimum, and in their place, you see only the pure majesty of Cthulhu. The Old Ones are, the Old Ones were, the Old Ones shall be, indeed.

Children Of Men

We debated whether to include this one, since it makes such a radical alteration to the book's storyline — in the book, it's men, not women, who are infertile. But this, and several other drastic changes from P.D. James' book, don't detract from the fact that director Alfonso Cuarón crafts a pretty gripping film in its own right, which preserves the dystopian feel and obsession with reproduction from the book. And the film's use of long, single-shot sequences in which huge events feel like they're happening all around you, makes it hard to forget afterwards. Here's a video about the making of the film, including those amazing long takes. And apparently, James herself was happy with it.

A Scanner Darkly

Philip K. Dick has probably had more of his books adapted to films than any other SF author — but Richard Linklater's film version of his undercover narc tripfest does the best possible job of giving you an audiovisual tour of Dick's universe. Watching this film, you feel as though you begin to understand what it might have been like to be Philip K. Dick — which is terrifying in itself.

Careful — there are massive spoilers in the video. The Road is out November 25th.

We sat down with Hillcoat and talked about the end of the world, and translating a film into a movie. The director shared with us the only issue McCarthy had with his film, which Hillcoat promptly changed...

io9: How did you deal with what to cut and what to leave in The Road?

JH: Cormac himself, he really understands how film works as a medium, how different it is. He didn't miss anything from the book other than four lines of dialogue. And this is where it's very telling as to what the real story is. Because those four lines of dialogue, which we did shoot and put back in, is when the boy says, "What would you do if I died?" And the father says, '"I'd want to die too, so you could be with me - so I could be with you."

Which is a beautiful thing to say, and that's in the movie. But that's what his interest was always - the focus of these central characters going through this journey. And the more cannibal stuff, it just becomes a different movie.

So that was what he wanted put back into the movie?

Just those four lines. Nothing else. He didn't miss any of it... It's been great, because he could see the more you focus on that other stuff [post apocalyptic doom, explosions and cannibalism] the more unbalanced it becomes, and it becomes something else.

The Road will be out November 25th.

The Road leads you to post-apocalyptic Hell on Nov. 25. [Yahoo! Movies]

I know the purpose of theatrical trailers is to get everyone interested in the film, but I have a feeling this movie isn't the fast paced on the run from cannibals, fire storm, kaboom, pow! flick the trailer makes it out to be - and it shouldn't be. The story is, at its heart, about a man and a boy and holding on to their last shreds of hope while encountering the darkest sides of humanity. It is not an end of the world catastrophe flick that puts a father and son on a fast-paced adventure.

But from the first official review, it sounds like this trailer was always going to be a bit of a stretch, and that the movie is a solid translation of McCarthy's work from page to screen, minus Charlize Therons' character's extended involvement, which, to be fair, could be interesting when she's paired up with Viggo.

The Road will be released in theaters on October 16, 2009 .

We've heard that The Road was pushed back to this fall for many reasons, including being too depressing, and being primed for awards season.

Esquire Magazine is the first official outlet to screen and review the entire movie, and they can't say enough nice things about this awful movie. And of course, we mean "awful" in a the world is burned to a cinder, waters are poisoned, dirt is radiated, and there is nowhere to go post-apocalyptic way.

"It is a love story," Esquires Tom Chiarella eplains, "But to be clear, it's a love story about a father and a son hauling ass to keep from being eaten by small bands of flannel-shirted cannibals."

For those not familiar with the tale, the book follows a man and his boy as they trek across the wasteland that was our Earth. Heading to the coast, they have to protect themselves against dehydration, hypothermia, starvation, and cannibals looking for their next meal. Calling The Road bleak would be an understatement. And Esquire says the film fully lives up to the book:

...There was not a single stupid choice made in turning this book into this movie. No wrongheaded lyric tribute to the novel. No moment engineered simply to make you jump.

The article also reveals a first look at the new trailer for The Road, including explanations for what happened to Earth, with disaster clips and media blips. Which is taking pretty big liberties, since it sounds like the movie doesn't reference a reason for the tragedy, and neither does the novel. The director addressed this:

On the other side of the planet, at home in Australia, Hillcoat's been hearing about these trailers. "We're so conditioned by postapocalyptic films to be centered on a big event, and they become this high-concept thing. And here there's this total absence, this negation of explanation. We have to stay with that. So yeah. That's gonna be a challenge."

Hopefully the need to over-explain will be edited out of the final trailer... but probably not. Also, some of the imagery used in the film is from real-life disaster footage, which is quite brilliant yet even more terrifying than special effects:

"When they pass through a city, there's a shot of two ships sitting on a freeway that looks like a visual effect," Hillcoat explained to Esquire. "That is an actual IMAX 70mm shot taken days after Katrina. We had to doctor the image, grunge it up, make it more toxic, set it into our world, but these places were not hard to find. There's a fair amount of devastation already in the American landscape."

All in all the review is absolutely glowing, which gives me hope that this flick will do what was intended, crush your soul (and maybe lift you up just a tiny tad). If the review is accurate we should all leave the theater "feeling it in our chest plate," telling others to see it, yet unable to explain why. Which sounds exactly right - let's hope it's true.

Here's hoping Negrete's novel is translated to English soon so it can reach a larger audience. A rising star in Spanish fantasy and science fiction, Negrete became well known for the heroic fantasy The Sword of Fire, that he wrote at the age of 17 and stashed in a drawer. His new novel Salamina will also dip into the historical reservoir, as it deals with the victory of a Greek naval fleet over the Persians in 480 B.C.

Best comic was Alfredo Álamo-Fedde's Legión del Espacio, which you can read in English here.

The 2004 Vernor Vinge novella, "The Cookie Monster," which can be read at in its original English at Analog, nabbed the translated short fiction prize (and also a Hugo Award in 2004). Luis Murilllo Fort's rendering of McCarthy's The Road was the best translation.

2008 Premios Ignotus Winner [OF Blog of the Fallen]

While I commend this idea, let's be honest with ourselves: This is a long book, with not a lot of action. This is a story that teaches you about being the end of possibilities, facing nothingness. While I completely believe Bale is reading McCarthy's work, that's big load to take on in the middle of an intense action movie shoot. But McG did give MTV pretty good reasons for pushing The Road on his cast and crew:

“I gave all the actors ‘The Road’ to read to get their heads right bout this sort of existential detachment that living in a post apocalyptic world would bring,” McG revealed. “We’re in a very large post apocalyptic environment. The bombs have gone off and there’s very little left. People are wandering through lonely landscapes. We want to capture that by way of David Lean photographic expanses, so you think you’re looking at ‘Lawrence of Arabia.’ So far, so good.”

At least McG is putting on his serious director hat for this movie. It sounds like a great idea, but I worry that they aren't stretching themselves too thin. The line-up of Terminator 4 influences is long I've heard Aliens, Nolan's Batman and now Cormac McCarthy, that's a lot spice my friends. Let's not forget why we're all going to see this movie. To watch robots kill people, and vice versa.

[MTV]

In The Road a father and son make their way through a burned out America heading to the coast with only a push cart and the clothes on their backs. The vision of a world of nothing is inescapable in these grim stills from the movie. Viggo Mortensen, cast as the father, promises a gritty clinging-to-the-coattails-of-survival performance the likes of which we've never seen.

The Road devastates its characters with the end of options, the end of possibility. In this new burned-out world, nothing could be grown, the snow was gray, the only possessions worth having were food and clothes. It's that vast emptiness that allows the reader to focus excruciatingly closely on the father-and-son relationship. I can't wait to see Mortensen lose his shit on his fellow travelers and try and avoid the cannibal posse that's hot on his trail.

The Road is set in a burned America, ruined after an unknown disaster. A father (Viggo Mortensen) and son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) embark on a long journey to the coast. In addition to coping with the wrecked countryside, the pair are also stalked by a gang of cannibals. In a new piece, the New York Times describes the movie's look as monotone and bleak, "The sky is gray, the rivers are black, and color is just a memory. The landscape is covered in ash, with soot falling perpetually from the air. The cities are blasted and abandoned. The roads are littered with corpses either charred or melted, their dreams."

How close will the movie stay to the book? Screenwriter Joe Penhall only admitted to fleshing out the fathers flashbacks and memories with his wife (Charlize Theron). The NYT explained that while they couldn't include most of McCarthy's narrative, a lot of that feeling will come from the overall look of the movie and from the acting. The location was selected primarily due to its "post-apocalyptic scenery" including a dunes, deserted coalfields, a burned-down amusement park and an 8-minute stretch of bare highway.

Road's director John Hillcoat went to painstaking ends to recreate this novel in a realistic manner:

"What's moving and shocking about McCarthy's book is that it's so believable," Mr. Hillcoat said. "So what we wanted is a kind of heightened realism, as opposed to the 'Mad Max' thing, which is all about high concept and spectacle. We're trying to avoid the clichés of apocalypse and make this more like a natural disaster."

So sorry Doomsday and Mad Max fans, no mohawks and crazy face tattoos. The characters in The Road are a product of their circumstances and wear whatever they can find, while stuffing their clothes with garbage insulation.

The NYT follows Viggo Mortensen in one scene where he chases after a stranger (Michael Kenneth Williams) who stole his belongings. After catching up with that man, Mortensen takes everything he has and leaves him to freeze while his son pleads with him to forgive the old man. [New York Times and Awards Daily]

This novel is about the arduous journey a father undertakes as he tries to get his son to safety after nuclear fallout and war has ravaged the world and turned most of the survivors into flesh-eating cannibals. The father and his son push a grocery cart through the wasteland, scavenging for food and supplies as they try to survive. The father's wife, long dead and seen only in brief flashbacks, will be played by Theron who is apparently a huge fan of the novel.

She'll be joined by either Guy Pearce or Viggo Mortensen as the father. However, having devotedly read all of McCarthy's novels, I'm not sure how what's on the page will translate to the screen very well, especially with these celebricons. Of course, I could be wrong. Even McCarthy's allegedly unfilmable Blood Meridian is getting a movie version, courtesy of Ridley Scott, so maybe filmmakers have cracked the code. After all, I never thought I'd enjoy No Country For Old Men on the big screen, but I was wrong about that one too.

Charlize Theron Hits The Road [Variety]