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Next year, not only will Sean Penn and Josh Brolin go toe to toe in Gangster Squad, Penn will likely direct Brolin in a tale of family and survival. Penn is set to helm a film called Crazy For The Storm, based on the memoirs of Norman Ollestad and Brolin is now in talks to star.
When Ollestad was 11-years-old, he was in a plane crash that killed three people, including his father, and left him stranded on a snowy mountaintop. Using the skills his father taught him, he was able to survive and escape. Brolin would play the father. Read more about the story and movie below.
Variety reported the news of the casting and said that while neither Brolin and Penn’s deals have closed, they’re likely to start shooting early next year. (Filming would likely take pace after Brolin finishes Spike Lee’s Oldboy remake.) Penn was originally thinking of playing the father role but instead opted to go the Into The Wild route and solely direct. Will Fetters (The Lucky One) adapted the novel for the screen and Warner Bros. will distribute.
Over on the Amazon page for Ollestad’s novel, there is a slew of information including photos of Ollestad growing up with his Dad, news stories about the crash, a personal essay and more. Just a glimpse of the page is simultaneously heartbreaking and inspiring, which one would assume is the tone the film will go for.
Here’s the Amazon.com review/summary:
The story itself could take your breath away: an 11-year-old boy, the only survivor of a small-plane crash in the San Gabriel Mountains in 1979, makes his way to safety down an icy mountain face in a blizzard, using the skills and determination he learned from his father. But it’s the way that Norman Ollestad tells his tale that makes Crazy for the Storm a memoir that will last. He almost has too much to tell: a way-larger-than-life father–former child actor, FBI man (who took on Hoover in a controversial book), and surfer who drove his son to test his limits in the surf and on the slopes; a youth spent in the short-lived counterculture paradise of Topanga Canyon; a stepfather who could give Tobias Wolff’s a run for his money; and of course the crash. But writing 30 years later, Ollestad is wise and talented enough to focus his story on the essentials, cutting elegantly back and forth between a moment-by-moment account of the crash and his memories of the difficult but often idyllic year leading up to it. More than a story of survival, it’s a time-tempered reckoning with what it means to be a father and a son.
Sounds tailor made for a movie, would you agree?
