Although it doesn’t look like anything’s completely firmed up yet, it appears Daniel Radcliffe is eyeing a role as famed beatnik poet Allen Ginsberg in Kill Your Darlings, according to Twitch. The film is a thriller that speculated around events involving beat generation legends, Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William S Burroughs.
They were all brought together by Columbia University student Lucien Carr, who was implicated in (and served time for) the murder of David Kammerer, who was found dead in Hudson River in 1944. The events surrounding the death are said to have had a massive impact on the beat circle, and tempered the idealism they had felt beforehand.
When the film was first announced in 2009, Chris Evans, Jesse Eisenberg and Ben Whishaw were attached to play Kerouac, Ginsberg and Carr, respectively. It’s unknown if Evans or Whishaw are still involved at all, but it seems Radcliffe has taken over Eisenberg’s part. If Daniel does take on the gay poet, he’ll follow in the footsteps of James Franco, who played Ginsberg in Howl.
John Krokidas will direct with hopes that shooting will start next summer.