Back in 2010, Emilio Estevez’s ‘The Way’ was released after a long journey of filming, funding and passion for the plot, which was penned and directed by Estevez.
The film stars the director’s father, Martin Sheen, and Estevez himself plays a small role in terms of screen time, but he’s also the catalyst to the whole story. ‘The Way’ follows a grieving father (Sheen) who makes his way to France after his estranged son (Estevez) dies while trying to complete the pilgrimage to Spain’s Santiago de Compostela.
It’s then that Sheen’s character, Tom, decides that he’s going to do the trek himself, and along the way, he makes some interesting connections.
The story is loosely based on the Jack Hitt book, ‘Off The Road: A Modern Day Walk Down the Pilgrim’s Route Into Spain’. But for Estevez, this plot is more of a passion project and a family effort when it came to getting the script to come to life.
“We were a scrappy lot,” Estevez explains. “[It] started out as this very independent production—I mean, we were funding the pre-production on our credit cards and my mom was using her mileage to bring actors over from Los Angeles to Madrid.”
And after being filmed, ‘The Way’ became such a project that the actor-writer-director took an old idea with a new lens to try and get the feature seen across the country, even without a large release.
“I had a crazy idea during ‘Bobby’ that I wanted to shrink wrap the bus and take a tour across the country to screen the film at colleges and universities and for large groups,” Estevez says. “And it was vetoed by the distributor…So I said, okay well, what I couldn’t do on ‘Bobby’ I want to do on ‘The Way’.”
And they did, through a 50-day, 35-city tour that began on the West Coast and traveled across the USA up and down. This screening tour also involved Estevez’s father and son, and sometimes, there would be up to two screenings a night with Q&A’s after both.
“We rang the bell on a true grassroots level, and then the movie came out and it did okay. It was kind of a surprise little Indie movie. But, because we ran out of money, we couldn’t keep the wheels turning. Everything kind of stopped,” continues Estevez.
The film gained its own cult following, according to the director, with some people buying dozens of copies to give to friends and families. Even with the sales, ‘The Way’ eventually went bankrupt with the company that had it in its library, and shortly after, it ended up in a motion to abandon rights court in Delaware.
“It was just one bad piece of news after another,” Estevez recalls. “And then in 2020, this company reached out to me—this boutique distribution company called Ocean Avenue Entertainment.”
Ocean Avenue wanted to help bring the film back from “nowhere-land”, and at a time when Estevez says people likely needed it the most. Then, when Fathom Events linked on to the project, the direction was going for a re-release in just under 1,000 screens around the country. The question then came up about funding—
“So I said, well, I guess I’m going back out on the road. So here I am doing just that,” Estevez remarks.
Fathom Events adds a deeper element when they re-release and screen films. For ‘The Way’, it was Estevez’s girlfriend who came up with the idea to contact travel writer Rick Steves to orchestrate a talk with Martin Sheen in Steves’ father’s old piano store, moderated by Estevez.
“We talked about faith, family, culture, why it’s important to travel and about the movie. It’s now this addendum discussion that’s tacked on the end of the film, which is what people are going to see on May 16.”
‘The Way’, much like the process of making it, focuses on a journey. The pilgrimage Tom makes in the film, El Camino de Santiago, or, The Way of Saint James is where the Apostle James was buried. It requires walking for 40 days and stamping a passport among certain stops. Before the film was released, many flocked to Europe to complete this personal quest. And after ‘The Way’, there’s even more doing so.
“I think that we’re all looking for something and we don’t necessarily know what it is. And even people who are looking for something sometimes don’t even know what they’re looking for—they’re just looking for change,” says Estevez. “When you’re on a 40-day walk you are forced to ask those larger questions, and you will find community whether you like it or not.”
Tom finds his own community in the film, and all along the way he brings his estranged son’s ashes with him to help him complete the journey as well. And we seen Sheen in what his son says is one the best performances of his career.
“Here he is, again, celebrated in a movie that he says is his favorite role….As a son, that’s a wonderful tribute to a father,” says Estevez. “Even as an audience member, I’ll sit in the wings after I introduce the movie and I’ll watch the first 10 minutes and I’m just drawn into it. It’s very emotional, the opening just always makes me weep. It’s one of those films that you continue to make discoveries while watching it that you didn’t see before.”
‘The Way’ has inspired many to make the same pilgrimage as Tom in the film—so much so that the director gets feedback from pilgrims in Spain saying 50% to 60 % of the people at some time have been inspired by the film to complete the trek. And there may even be a sequel in the works. But for those who are seeing the feature for the first time, or, for frequent flyers, Estevez has a hope for everyone watching, and it echoes what happens to the characters in the story.
“We are a global community, like it or not,” Estevez finishes. “And none of us get out of this adventure alive, so we better figure out how to deal with each other. We realize that not everyone has the resources to be able to just sort of pick up and travel to Spain or take a Rick Steves tour. So this movie affords the viewer to take a journey, take a trip without having to leave their couch and if they’re so inclined to, then the Camino waits for you. And it will be there for a long time as it’s been there for over a thousand years.”
Catch The Way when it re-releases in select theaters on May 16.
