Just stop the music now, cries author

The author of “Into the Wild,” a book about the life and death of Christopher McCandless in the Alaskan wilderness, has filed suit against a pair of playwrights who developed the tragic tale into a musical.

Jon Krakauer (photo) wrote the page-turner in 1996, telling the story of McCandless, a college graduate who ventured to Alaska in 1992 with the hopes of living off the land. He died of starvation in a remote area several months later, at age 24.

And while the author agreed to let Nikos Tsakalakos and Janet Allard adapt it into a show, the relationship has since soured, as Krakauer filed a lawsuit against the playwrights in Boulder, Colo., on Nov. 30, according to the Daily Camera.

The pair reportedly approached Krakauer and the Christopher Johnson McCandless Memorial Foundation in hopes of turning “Into the Wild” into a musical. An agreement was reached, and in April 2017, an “Into the Wild” production premiered, marketing itself as based on Krakauer’s book.

But after a year, Krakauer had doubts, and in May 2018, he told Tsakalakos and Allard he found the script “objectionable,” and wanted his name and the book’s title stripped from the production – something his lawyer claimed in the lawsuit he had a right to do based on the previously signed agreement.

It remains unclear what Krakauer took issue with, and what changed in the year between the show’s debut and May 2018. The playwrights reportedly agreed to remove the “Into the Wild” name after Krakauer’s attorneys told them the author owned the rights – but on Nov. 1, they sent an email claiming they had “every right” to the title after speaking with McCandless’ parents.

The book was previously adapted into an Oscar-nominated movie in 2007 directed by Sean Penn and starring Emile Hirsch.