punke allegedly came up with the idea to write the novel while on an airplane, after reading a couple of lines in a history book about real-life frontier fur trapper hugh glass. punke was also working at the law firm of mayer brown at the time when he started the book (1997), so he would go to the office as early as 5:00 am before anyone else got there to write pages for roughly three hours, and then do his job for eight to ten hours. the book took a total of four years to complete and according to his brother tim, punke actually caught pneumonia at least four times during the writing process. punke also performed extensive research on glass, which included setting up and testing real hunting traps. the book was published in 2002 to little fanfare, although punke was able to sell movie rights to it. once he discovered the novel, director alejandro g. iñárritu fought for it to be made into a movie, where other directors such as park chan-wook and producers such as megan ellison were also attached.