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Jesse Eisenberg Joins Kill Your Darlings as Allen Ginsberg

by Alex Billington
March 17, 2009

Killer Films is developing Kill Your Darlings, about the poet Allen Ginsberg and the murder that helped spawn the Beat Generation. Jesse Eisenberg (The Squid and the Whale, Adventureland) has been cast in the lead role as Ginsberg, and Chris Evans and Ben Whishaw have also joined the cast as Jack Kerouac and Lucien Carr, respectively. John Krokidas will be making his directorial debut. The script was written by Krokidas and his Yale roommate Austin Bunn. The story surrounding the murder is quite fascinating, so read on for more. This is also not related to Howl, the other Allen Ginsberg biopic starring James Franco.

There is a great write-up on the events that make up the story in Kill Your Darlings over at CHUD. Columbia student Lucien Carr befriended Allen Ginsberg and introduced him to Jack Kerouac and fellow Beat poet William Burroughs. Carr was also friends with a somewhat deranged David Kammerer, who was in love with Carr. When Kerouac and Carr decided to join the Merchant Marines, Kammerer flipped out and ended up in a scuffle with Carr at a park, where he eventually stabbed Kammerer to death. There's more to the story, but that's the basic idea, which should make for a fascinating film, especially with this cast.

Explore tags: Casting, Movie News

Richard

This sounds interestNOT. Doesn't shit like this happen everyday in every city someone gets stabbed to death, they should make movies about that too. Maybe I'm just being a jerk about it, that's probably it.
Andrew

Yes, it does happen every day in every city, but not every victim helped create an entire generation of musicians, poets, authors, and artists.
http://movies.iconocritic.com peloquin

Wow Richard...to so callouslly write off the life story of three of the best writers of the last century as boring seems ignorant, and it scares me a lot because even though people beg for original stories they really just want explosions and big robots. Here's a fresh idea Richard, so stop whining about all the remakes and support it!
Richard

I said I was being a jerk what else do you want?
Richard

BTW I am ignorant about this Beat Poet stuff, I have 0 to 0 interest in that era, its not my cup-o-tea, I have no idea who these people are or why they are important and after reading the synopsis still don't care.
moldybread

Thank the stars!!! something besides a f&^%ing comic book or remake of someone else's efforts...the Beat movement is a piece of REAL american history and of great interest to many educated people...whether or not events are all that unusual or not, the real life characters that are involved were fascinating people...I cant wait to hear more on this...
hey

#1, this clearly isn't a film aimed at your demographic. the fact that a jonny quest film is being made will be of much more interest to you, especially as it stars zac efron. this film is about true story of artistic revolution and is doing it with some great up and coming actors - how that is uninteresting to you is beyond me. if it turns out that jack kerouac is actually a cyborg and lucien carr is an secret agent from an alternate earth, would that make it interesting to you?
Richard

Actually I'm a college Grad making about 60K a year and own my own home etc. I'm educated enough to know I don't care for this or Johnny Quest, just because YOU like Beat poets doesn't mean your any better or worse then anyone else you hypocritical dumbshit, so I guess your just as ignorant about life as I am about Beat poets.
Batman

"I'm educated".... I particularly enjoyed this part.