That rumor that David Foster Wallace had collaborated on a screenplay adaptation of his own massive novel, Infinite Jest within a year before his recent suicide? As we suspected, it’s turned out to be somewhat off the mark––but not completely without a grain of truth. Glenn Kenny, who worked with Wallace on three stories at Premiere (including the infamous David Lynch profile and a story on Terminator 2 which was eventually published elsewhere), made some calls and wrote in with his findings. The gist: there is an Infinite Jest screenplay, which Sam Jones was at one point attached to direct, but other than writing the novel on which it was based, Wallace had nothing to do with it. Full details after the jump.
The following is excerpted directly from an email from Kenny, who spoke with Wallace’s agent, Bonnie Nadell:
The story is: a couple of years back, around the time of “Infinite Jest”’s tenth anniversary, a company called Open City bought an option on the book, and had Keith Bunin write a screenplay. Several attempts at adapting is had been made before, but according to Bonnie, the resultant screenplay was the best she had ever read. Sam Jones was then brought on as director. But the option ran out before Open City could acquire financing, and is now available again. Bonnie told me that if it ever gets picked up again, she hope’s Bunin’s screenplay is put back into play, as she was very impressed with it.
What is not true, as I suspected, is the rumor that Wallace “collaborated” on the screenplay in any way, shape, or form. He held the film industry at arm’s length or better, and trusted Bonnie’s judgment with respect to these issues. He accepted that adaptation of “Infinite Jest” in the sense that he accepted that Bonnie was looking after it, and of course he accepted the check for the option. As for Bunin’s screenplay, not only did Wallace not consult on it, he never read the completed version. And “Jest,” as I said, remains in movie limbo.
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