In some of the trippiest adaptation news to surface in years, both Jack Black and Woody Harrelson are on the shortlist to play novelist Ken Kesey in a film version of Tom Wolfe’s classic examination of hippie culture, “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.”
According to Rolling Stone, the film will be guided by Gus Van Sant, the director of “Milk” and the literary-minded “Finding Forrester.” Van Sant and Kesey were friends in the 1970s, and the author gave the director his blessing.
The article quotes one of Kesey’s close friends, Carolyn Garcia, on Harrelson’s groovy visit to the writer’s compound. Dig it: “They went out into the field and had a pretty good mind meld … I just know he could play the role.”