Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a 1998 film adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's 1971 novel Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream. The film, directed by Terry Gilliam, stars Johnny Depp as Raoul Duke and Benicio Del Toro as Dr. Gonzo. Released on May 22, 1998 and earned about $10.6 million at U.S. box office. It has since become a cult classic.

Journalist Raoul Duke and attorney Dr. Gonzo travel to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1971 to cover a motorcycle race for a sports magazine and enjoy a haphazardly planned vacation. The vacation turns highly irresponsible and reckless as the two consume copious amounts of illegal drugs, commit various acts of fraud, and generally wreak havoc upon the citizens of Las Vegas. It is a largely fictionalized account of Thompson and attorney Oscar Zeta Acosta's actual trip to Las Vegas around the same time period.

Thompson also has a brief cameo in the film while Duke has a flashback to a San Francisco music club, The Matrix, where Thompson can be seen sitting at a table as Depp walks by narrating his inner monologue, "There I was ... Mother of God! There I am! Holy fuck!". This is actually Johnny dressed up as Thompson, the conversation between Depp and Thompson in the film's special edition actors commentary reveals this.

Dr. Gonzo is based on Thompson's friend Oscar Zeta Acosta, who disappeared sometime in 1974. Theories as to the fate of Oscar Zeta Acosta range from murder-at-sea, to staging his own disappearance. Thompson changed Zeta Acosta's ethnic identity to "Samoan" to deflect suspicion from Zeta Acosta, who was in some trouble with the L.A. Legal Bar, since he was a lawyer, and committing dubious amounts of crime at the time the book was written. Zeta Acosta was the famous "Chicano lawyer" notorious for his party binges.

The lead actors undertook extraordinary preparations for their respective roles. Del Toro gained more than 40 pounds (18 kg) before filming began, and extensively researched Acosta's life. Depp lived with Thompson for four months, doing research for the role as well as studying Thompson's habits and mannerisms. Depp even traded his car for Thompson's red Chevrolet Caprice convertible, known to fans as The Great Red Shark, and drove it around California during his preparation for the role. Thompson spent that period in Depp's car with a woman named Heidi, writing an essay called "Fear And Loathing In Hollywood: My Doomed Love At The Taco Stand" that was partially published in Time Magazine.

Many of the costumes that Depp wears in the film are actually reproductions of genuine pieces that Depp borrowed from Thompson, and Thompson himself shaved Depp's head to match his own natural male pattern baldness. Other props, such as Duke's cigarette filter (a TarGard Permanent Filter System), shirts, hats and IDs, belonged to Thompson.

During the initial development to get the film made, Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando were originally considered for the roles of Duke and Gonzo, and Nicholson was attached, but he and Brando both grew too old. Afterward, Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi were considered for the duo, but that fell apart when Belushi died. John Malkovich was later considered for the role of Duke, but he too grew too old. At one point John Cusack was almost cast, but then Hunter S. Thompson met Johnny Depp, and was convinced no one else could play him. Cusack had previously directed the play version of "Fear and Loathing", with his brother playing Duke.

Animator/filmmaker Ralph Bakshi tried to convince a girlfriend of Hunter S. Thompson to let him do "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" as an animated movie, done in the style of Ralph Steadman's illustrations for the book. Bakshi is quoted as saying: "Hunter had given the rights to a girlfriend of his. I spent three days with her trying to talk her into me animating it - she wanted to make a live action of it - I kept telling her that a live action would look like a bad cartoon but an animated version would be a great one. She had a tremendous disdain for animators because it wasn't considered the top of Hollywood. Hunter also could not make her change her mind. So she made the pic with Johnny Depp, and got the film I told her she would get - it would have been more real in a cartoon using Steadman's drawings."

Martin Scorsese and Oliver Stone each tried to get the film off the ground, but were unsuccessful and moved on. Alex Cox was slightly more successful.

Alex Cox, who wrote the original screenplay with his longtime collaborator Tod Davies, cast both Depp and Del Toro. When Gilliam became director of the project, he rejected the Cox/Davies screenplay. Thompson himself did not approve of Cox's approach to the movie. Gilliam decided to write his own screenplay with collaborator Tony Grisoni. When the film approached release, Gilliam learned that the Writers Guild of America (WGA) would not allow Cox and Davies to be removed from the credits even though none of their material was used in the production of the film. Angered over having to share credit, Gilliam publicly burned his WGA card at a May 22 book signing on Broadway.

Thompson's disapproval of the Cox/Davies script treatment is documented in the film Breakfast with Hunter, in which he rails against the writers for planning an animated portrayal of the "wave speech", which he considered "probably the finest thing [he'd] ever written." By the time Fear and Loathing was released as a Criterion Collection DVD in 2003, Thompson showed his approval of the Gilliam version by recording a full-length audio commentary for the movie and participating in several DVD special features.

According to the audio commentary by Gilliam, during the period where it appeared that only Cox and Davies would be credited for the screenplay, the movie was to begin with a short scene in which it is explained that no matter what is said in the credits, no writers were involved in the making of the movie. When this changed, the short was not needed. Similar difficulties happened during the production of Gilliam's later film The Brothers Grimm.

On an audio commentary track in the Criterion edition of the DVD, Gilliam expresses great pride in the film and says it was one of the few times where he did not have to fight extensively with the studio during the filming. Gilliam chalks this up the fact that many of the studio executives read Thompson's book in their youth and understood it could not be made into a conventional Hollywood film. However, he does express frustration with the advertising campaign used during it's initial release, which he says tried to sell it as wacky comedy.

Cultural References:
The hard rock and previously metal core band Avenged Sevenfold wrote a song "Bat Country", which is a reference to the novel, and is dedicated to its late author, Hunter S. Thompson.
Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo are featured in The Simpsons episode "Viva Ned Flanders" where they are animated in the same style as that of Ralph Steadman; they're shown leaving Las Vegas, with Gonzo complaining about the number of tourists saying that there were "Too many kids."
The band Mastodon's song "I Am Ahab" is based on the part of the movie when Dr. Gonzo is in the bath tub. ( Mastodon's song "I Am Ahab" is about Captain Ahab in the book Moby Dick, "I Am Ahab" is off their CD Leviathan which is about the book - TGHK )

The soundtrack contains the songs used in film with clips of the movie before each song. So considering this each song starts about 30 seconds later than it would normally. The soundtrack contains the music of that time with one exception being the Dead Kennedys rendition of "Viva Las Vegas". The Rolling Stones song "Jumping Jack Flash" is heard at the conclusion of the film as Thompson drives out of Las Vegas.

Track listing:
"Combination of the two" Big Brother & Holding Company
"One Toke over the line" Brewer & Shipley
"She's a Lady" Tom Jones
"For Your Love" The Yardbirds
"White Rabbit" Jefferson Airplane
"Drug Score 1" Tomoyasu Hotei & Ray Cooper
"Get Together" The Youngbloods
"Mama told me not to come" Three Dog Night
"Stuck Inside Mobile with the Memphis Blues" Bob Dylan
"Time is Tight" Booker T. & the MG's
"Magic Moments" Perry Como
"Drug Score 2" Tomoyasu Hotei & Ray Cooper
"Tammy" Debbie Reynolds
"Drug Score 3" Tomoyasu Hotei & Ray Cooper
"Expecting to Fly" Buffalo Springfield
"Viva Las Vegas" Dead Kennedys

The coconut-smashing scene towards the end of the film was not originally in the book. Hunter S. Thompson wrote the scene for the novel and then omitted it.

In the book Thompson listens to "Sympathy for the Devil" by the Rolling Stones, but the rights to play it in the film were too expensive for the production budget.