Think about it: In the 20th century, there was arguably no other performing duo so publicly in love — for so long — as Johnny and June, who wed in 1968 after a decade of yearning and forestalling, and were inseparable until their deaths just four months apart 35 years later. You'd assume Walk the Line would have been a movie studio's dream — particularly with a director, Girl, Interrupted's James Mangold, who'd overseen Oscar-caliber performances; a tight $28 million budget; and the commitment of Phoenix and Witherspoon, who'd signed on for a fraction of their usual fees. Yet ''the studios viewed it as nostalgia,'' says producer Cathy Konrad, recalling the reaction when she and Mangold first made the rounds. ''A lot of people in Hollywood view John as 'country,' and then ask, 'Does country sell?''' In other words, great idea for a Cracker Barrel DVD exclusive, but we'll pass.
It took several years before a studio, Fox, took on Walk the Line, but the delays had an upside: They gave the filmmakers more time to befriend Cash and Carter and prod them for previously unchronicled personal details they could use in the script, down to the first time they slept together. Son (and exec producer) John Carter Cash admits there's stuff in the screenplay he hadn't heard. ''My parents never told me that my mother threw beer bottles at my father and his friends one morning,'' he says, surmising, ''If my mother threw beer bottles, she had a pretty good reason.''
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