How four former Scouts made a movie about one of Scouting’s most inspirational stories

The right book can change your life.

For Ryan Cook, Lost on a Mountain in Maine was that book.

The novel by Donn Fendler is based on the true story of how Fendler used his faith in God, his will to live and his Scout training to survive alone — without supplies — for nine days on Mount Katahdin back in 1939 when he was just 12 years old.

The incident captivated the nation as it unfolded in real time in 1939 and, thanks to the book, continues to captivate readers to this day.

For Cook, who grew up as a Scout in the 1990s in Troop 463 in Waterville, Maine, the novel was a life-changer.

“It’s not required reading, but it’s pretty much read by every fourth-grader in the state,” Cook says. “My dad read it to me when I was 10, before we hiked Katahdin for the first time.”

Cook read the book again at school. Fendler himself spoke to Cook’s class about how he survived for so long on the mountain that is the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail.

“He was a real inspiration,” Cook says. “A lot of people looked up to sports stars and movie stars. I looked up to Donn Fendler.”

Eventually, Cook grew up and developed a career in the movie business. He’s worked as a location manager on projects for Showtime, Paramount Pictures, Lionsgate and 20^th Century Studios. He’s worked on a project for Showtime as a supervising location manager and for Netflix as production supervisor.

Now he’s a producer on the film version of Lost on a Mountain in Maine.

On a Zoom call last week, I asked him, “Who would have thought that you’d be working on a movie based on your favorite book as a child?”

His answer: “I did.”

Lost on a Mountain in Maine — the movie — hits theaters November 1. It is the cumulative result of the hard work of — among others — Cook, his producing partner Derek Desmond, fellow producer Dick Boyce and director Andrew Kightlinger.

All four of them were Scouts in their youth. All four of them felt a calling to turn the novel into the thrilling, inspiring movie they knew it could be.

The story of how the Lost on a Mountain in Maine movie came to be is a remarkable tale in its own right. It involves a lot of Scout-like stick–to–itiveness, a little bit of what Cook calls kismet, and a helping hand from one of the biggest stars in Hollywood.

Meeting Donn Fendler

It was during his time at Emerson College when he was studying film and film production that Cook started trying to figure out how to turn Lost on a Mountain in Maine into a movie.

Perhaps a little naive to the ins and outs of the business of movie rights, Cook and Desmond reached out to Fendler in 2009 to gauge his interest in making a movie based on his story.

“People have been trying to make this movie for years,” Fendler told them. “The rights are really complicated. This is not going to happen.”

Perhaps a bit surprised but not the least bit deterred, Cook and Desmond took up Fendler’s offer to have a meeting anyway.

“Me and Derek had dinner with him in his living room,” Cook says. “I said, ‘I know people have come before us. But I’m the guy who doesn’t go away. I’m going to stick to this.’”

Fendler was gracious but skeptical. Still, the three of them hit it off. Over the next seven years, as efforts to obtain the rights went round and round and round, the trio developed a deep friendship.

Cook and Desmond went with Fendler as the author traveled throughout Maine to tell his story at schools, libraries and Scout meetings.

“The more time I spent with him, the more it was really ingrained in me that I had to get this movie to the finish line,” Cook says. “And it was because I saw what he meant to other people. The way he’d connect with people.

“I can’t tell you how many people said, ‘I’m fighting cancer.’ ‘My sister is sick.’ ‘I’m going through a hard time.’ ‘I read your book, and I think to myself that I’m going to be OK.’”

But the rights to make the movie remained out of reach.

“This guy from Pepsi-Cola once called me, and he said he knows some people,” Fendler told Cook and Desmond. “If the guy from Pepsi can’t get it done, how are you kids going to get it done?”

Fendler died in 2016. For Cook, it felt like he had a lost a grandfather.

But it only strengthened his resolve to get this movie made.

The guy from Pepsi

Dick Boyce grew up in a rural part of Pennsylvania in the 1960s. He was active in Scouts for several years until his troop dissolved and there was no other troop around for him to join.

Boyce’s dad read Lost on a Mountain in Maine to him.

“My dad never read books to me,” he says. “But he read that to me, and it was really inspiring.”

Boyce grew up and developed a career in the finance business. In the early 1990s, he, his wife and their two young sons moved to Rye, N.Y.

“I sent my two boys to the local library and told them to pick out a book to read that night,” Boyce says.

Boyce swears he had never told his wife or his kids about his experience as a child reading Lost on a Mountain in Maine with his dad.

Anyone want to guess which book his kids pulled off the shelves of that library?

“Out of 10,000 books in the library, they came out with that one,” Boyce says.

In checking out the book, the librarian told the boys that Fendler still lived in Rye, the town in which he was born. Of all the places the Boyces could have chosen to live, they had chosen to live in same town as Donn Fendler.

It was either a great coincidence or maybe kismet — something by chance that seems like it was meant to be.

Boyce was now working as a senior vice president for Pepsi-Cola. He had no experience making movies, but he immediately felt like this book needed to be adapted to film.

He called Fendler but was unable to obtain the rights for the movie. Nearly two decades later, Fendler would relay this story to Cook and Desmond.

“If the guy from Pepsi can’t get it done, how are you kids going to get it done?”

Finally, progress

In 2018, Boyce was rearranging some items in his home when he came across an old copy of Lost on a Mountain in Maine. It had been 25 years since he had initially contacted Fendler and, as he would eventually find out, two years since the author’s death.

Out of curiosity to find out whatever happened with the movie, Boyce reached out to the Fendler estate and was told by Fendler’s brother that the rights had been acquired by a couple of young producers named Ryan Cook and Derek Desmond.

That’s right: It took 14 years, but the two former Scouts had finally been successful in obtaining the rights to turn the book into a movie.

Thrilled to hear that a movie was being made, Boyce connected with Cook and Desmond to see how he could be of help.

Cook and Desmond were skeptical at first. They had talked with several filmmakers who wanted to make major changes to the story in converting it to the big screen.

“They didn’t see in the story what we saw in the story,” Cook says. “Then I get this call from Dick Boyce, and Dick tells me the story about his relationship with the book.”

Still, Cook and Desmond wanted to be sure that the story resonated with Boyce the way it resonated with them.

“They really put me through the ringer,” Boyce says.

The unofficial final test was to hike with Boyce to the top of Mount Katahdin to see the actual spot where Fendler got separated from his traveling companions and became lost.

“We wanted to get him up there so he could see the place for real,” Cook says. “It was very clear that Dick and I had the same vision for the movie. We both knew what the book meant to so many people.”

With the three producers on board, the project now had serious momentum.

Shortly after, things would pick up even more when Boyce connected the group with a production company founded by one of Hollywood’s most famous stars.

Hiring a director

Balboa Productions is a film production company founded by Sylvester Stallone, the Hollywood icon made famous by his role as Rocky Balboa.

“We were looking for a third leg of the partnership that shared the same vision for the story and how it should be translated to the big screen,” Cook says.

When you share a common vision with Rocky, you know you’re headed in the right direction.

Stallone said of their project, “I’ve been making movies for a long time about what man can endure, but I’ve never made one about that kind of toughness in a kid.”

They were introduced to screenwriter Luke Paradise, who hiked with them up and down Katahdin and only afterward was hired to write the script.

That left one major opening: the film’s director.

Andrew Kightlinger was born and raised in Madagascar. The son of two missionaries, he moved with his family to South Dakota, and his father, a former Scout, signed Andrew up for Scouting.

“The thing about Scouts that is this core memory of mine were the high-adventure trips,” Kightlinger says. “We canoed the Boundary Waters for a week. We went to Bighorn (National Forest). We hiked Cloud Peak (the highest peak in the Bighorn Mountains). We did the Badlands (National Park).

“Those are still some of the most memorable things I did in my childhood.”

Eventually, Kightlinger’s interests drifted toward the theater and film. When he got the call to consider directing Lost on a Mountain in Maine, he knew pretty quickly what he wanted to do.

“Their passion was so palpable that it was hard for me not to be inspired immediately,” Kightlinger says. “I was like, ‘I gotta be part of this project.’

“I couldn’t wait to hike that mountain for the first time.”

Up and down Katahdin they all went again, and Kightlinger got the job.

Filming the movie was a high-adventure trek in and of itself.

You can’t take actors — especially child actors — on one of the most challenging nontechnical day hikes in the United States. Instead, they shot most of the scenes with the actors on sets designed to look like a trail, an open area of wilderness or the top of a mountain.

Later, Kightlinger, Cook and several crew members each carrying 60 pounds of film gear hiked up and down the mountain to get shots of actual spots where Fendler had gotten lost more than 80 years earlier.

Lost on a Mountain in Maine — both the movie and the book — is a story of courage and survival. It’s a story about a boy and his father. It’s about the pain and guilt of a father who perhaps had struggled in the past to express his love for his son, and it’s about a 12-year-old boy digging deeper inside himself than he ever thought possible to survive an impossible situation.

“This movie is about a father and a son trying to connect,” says Kightlinger. “It’s about a boy who wants a hug from his dad.”

Click here to learn more about the Lost on a Mountain in Maine movie, including information on getting tickets for shows in your area.