Enzo has seen a documentary about Mongolia, where it’s believed that when a dog finishes living his lifetime as a dog, his next incarnation will be as a man. The film follows Denny and the loves of his life: his wife, Eve, their young daughter Zoë, and ultimately, his true best friend, Enzo. Through his bond with his owner, aspiring Formula One race car driver Denny Swift (Milo Ventimiglia), Enzo has gained tremendous insight into the human condition and understands that the techniques needed on the racetrack can also be used to successfully navigate the journey of life. Like the novel, the film is narrated by the wise and philosophical dog, Enzo (voiced by Kevin Costner). In addition, Bomback has advised at the Sundance Institute’s New Frontier Story Lab, and has taught screenwriting at his Alma mater, Wesleyan University. While primarily a writer of feature films, Mark Bombck recently created the limited series Defending Jacob for Apple +. It’s probably one of the most critical tools I had in trying to adapt the story, says Bomback, who dealt with another kind of animal when he wrote the screenplays for The War for the Planet of the Apes, and Wolverine. In this film, we have the opportunity to enter Enzo’s head through voiceover and his narration. You wish you could get into the interior lives of characters in other ways, like novelists do, but you only have these two things. “Oftentimes when you’re writing a screenplay, you have two tools only: dialogue and action, that’s it.

For screenwriter Mark Bomback it was a gift to adapt Garth Stein’s beloved novel The Art Of Racing In The Rain, which features a wise and philosophical dog who longs to be reincarnated as a human.

Art of racing in the rain novel