Telluride update: “‘The Last Station’ finally feels the love?”

There’s an inspiring story wrapped up amidst this LA Times update re the 35th annual Telluride Film Festival, recounting how the indie movie “The Last Station” took 20 years to get made:

Adapted from Jay Parini’s historical novel “The Last Station: A Novel of Tolstoy’s Last Year,” director Michael Hoffman’s movie has been in the works for almost two decades. When Parini’s book about Tolstoy and his relationship with his wife, Sophia, was published in 1990, actor Anthony Quinn believed it not only was the perfect source material for a movie, but also that he should play Tolstoy. The “Zorba the Greek” actor enlisted a then up-and-coming producer, Bonnie Arnold, to shepherd the project, but for every step forward, there was an equal step back. There were any number of screenplay revisions and false starts, but even Quinn’s death in 2001 couldn’t shake Arnold’s belief in the project. “I always thought it would be a good movie,” she said. “So I really didn’t give up, ever.”

“So I really didn’t give up, ever.” Good for you, Ms. Arnold! And how did it all come together?

Finally, with Hoffman (“Restoration”) on board to write and direct, and producers Chris Curling and Jens Meurer able to scrape together $18 million from half a dozen German and Russian entities, “The Last Station” went into production in early 2008, nearly 20 years after Quinn had first read the novel and Arnold had agreed to help him transform it into a movie. Helen Mirren was cast as Sophia, Christopher Plummer as Tolstoy and James McAvoy as Tolstoy’s secretary, Valentin Bulgakov.

But now comes the next challenge:

Playing to sold-out Telluride audiences, “The Last Station” emerged as one of the festival’s most popular films. Now it faces one more critical challenge: finding an American theatrical distributor. “The movie really is a crowd pleaser, and I really hope that a distributor will take note of that and jump on board,” Arnold said.

Here’s hoping this story has a happy ending (i.e., a distribution deal).

You know there’s a bit of conventional wisdom that floats around Hwood: A great story [script] will always find a way to get produced [as a movie]. With all the crap that funnels into theaters, it’s easy to to become disabused of that idea.

But then The Last Station comes along. Last year, the same thing with Slumdog Millionaire.

So no matter how long the odds, how difficult the journey may portend to be, if you have a great story within you, write the hell out of it. Because if it’s truly great, you won’t have to look for a way into Hollywood. Hollywood will come looking for you.

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