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Total Film: The Modern Guide to The Movies

A real-life story of psychedelic self-discovery

Oct 28th 2008 By Total Film

Fox Searchlight has stumped up the money for Gus Van Sant to make The Electric Kool-Aid Test, based on Tom Wolfe’s book.

Kool-Aid was Wolfe’s 1968 account of a group (including One Flew Over The cuckoo’s Next author Ken Kesey) who drove across America dropping LSD and other psychedelic drugs.

The group – known as the Merry Pranksters – drove their Day-Glo school bus across the country in search of revelations, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Milk team

Sounds right up Van Sant’s alleyway, and to make it he’s reuniting with writer Dustin Lance Black, who worked on Milk, Van Sant’s latest, Oscar whispered biopic that stars Sean Penn.

Hhhm… a gay rights legend followed by a drug-fuelled voyage of discovery? Van Sant’s not going to be very popular with America’s conservatives by next year…