A new film about Hunter S. Thompson’s 1970 campaign for sheriff in Aspen is being released in limited movie theaters in the U.S. on Friday. It is not yet playing Aspen, but is playing nearby at the Roaring Fork Valley’s Movieland in El Jebel.
“Fear and Loathing in Aspen,” written and directed by Bobby Kennedy III, stars Jay Bulger as Thompson in a dramatized account of the local hippie-led reform movement and revolutionary “Freak Power” campaign.
The film has followed a winding five-year-long road to this quiet release from Shout! Factory.
Its production was funded by $300,000 in rebates granted by Colorado’s Economic Development Commission in 2016. At the time it had a $1.85 million budget, according to a Denver Post report. But Kennedy later told the Aspen Daily News that the non-government money had been promised by Sony and that his team walked away from that deal due to creative differences, proceeding instead with a shoestring $250,000 budget.
Fear and Loathing in Aspen in some theaters Friday, but not in Aspen aspentimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from aspentimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.