The River Wild

The River Wild – Movie Poster – 1994

The River Wild was an original screenplay inspired by a six-day rafting trip I took with friends down Montana’s Smith River. It’s a wilderness river that winds through the Lewis & Clark National Forest, and for the most part once you get on it, you can’t get off for fifty-odd miles.

Working with great actors and a wonderful director (Curtis Hansen) was a joy for me – especially to have been so lucky on my first produced film. For any river detectives out there, the cinematic “River Wild” was actually shot on three different rivers: Montana’s Middle Fork of the Flathead, & Kootenai River, and on Oregon’s Rogue River.

I’ve mentioned to friends I never want to write (and see produced) a movie where I can’t have a fly rod in hand sometime during the shoot. So far, I’m two for two (A Shot at Glory starring Robert Duvall being the other film). That rule also goes for the lead actors: Meryl single-handling a 5 weight fly rod in The River Wild – Robert Duvall wielding a two-handed Spey rod in A Shot at Glory (filmed in Scotland.)

Here are a few studio stills taken during the making of the film: