‘Lost on a Mountain in Maine’ film will finally hit cinemas this summer
By Emily Burnham, Bangor Daily News Staff
A feature film version of Donn Fendler’s classic survival memoir “Lost on a Mountain in Maine” will be released in cinemas and on streaming this summer, according to two of its producers.
“Lost on a Mountain in Maine,” filmed in 2022, was produced by Sylvester Stallone’s Balboa Productions, and this week was picked up by Blue Fox Entertainment for distribution. Producers Ryan Cook and Derek Desmond, Mainers who in 2013 released a documentary, “Finding Donn Fendler,” said on the movie’s Facebook page that they expect the feature film to be released this summer.
The movie, directed by Andrew Kightlinger and written by Luke Paradise, is a long-in-the-works adaptation of Fendler’s true story of getting lost at age 12 in the Katahdin wilderness for nine days in 1939, surviving only off his wits and determination. The story captivated and frightened people from all over the world, and when the boy was finally found by a search party it made front page news at the Bangor Daily News.
The book was required reading in Maine classrooms for generations, and Fendler gave talks in schools for decades up until his death in 2016 at age 90.
According to producer Dick Boyce, an executive producer on the film whose parents read him the book as a child, a feature film version of Donn Fendler’s story has been in the works in one form or another for decades, and is now finally seeing the light of day.
“This is a 40-years-in-the-making passion project that captures the essence of my parents: family, hope and grit,” Boyce told movie industry website ScreenDaily.
The film stars Camden native Caitlin Fitzgerald (“Succession,” “Masters of Sex,” “The Trial of the Chicago 7”) and Paul Sparks (“House of Cards,” “Boardwalk Empire”) as Fendler’s parents, and Luke David Blumm (“Where the Crawdads Sing,” “The King of Staten Island”) as Fendler. Rounding out the cast is Ethan Slater, soon to be seen in the movie adaptation of the musical “Wicked.”
As with most movies set in Maine, “Lost” was not actually filmed in the state. According to newspaper the Daily Freeman, it was shot in the summer of 2022 in Ulster County, New York, in the Hudson Valley. That’s despite the fact that Katahdin plays such a prominent role in Fendler’s story, and that the book has for more than 80 years been considered one of the most iconic stories to come out of the state.