John Hillcoat at the end of The Road

For Australian director John Hillcoat, adapting Cormac McCarthy’s 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Road to the screen came with expectations from all corners. He told Paul Hayes that this is the end of the world as you don’t know it.

Filming a beloved novel is a tricky situation at the best of times. It is one of popular culture’s more perplexing ironies that cinema audiences are far more upset at the idea of a filmmaker changing the plot or character details of a well-known book than they do about changing events from real history.

Hillcoat had to deal with the millions of literary fans who had read the book and loved it enough to make it an international bestseller, who would no doubt be wary of any changes made for the screen.

Then there were film audiences from all over the world, who had taken very keen notice of McCarthy’s work after the Coen brothers delivered one of the last decade’s most acclaimed films, 2007’s No Country for Old Men, based on another of his novels.