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EXCLUSIVE: Josh Lucas (Yellowstone) has signed on to star in Slay the Dreamer, a new film based on the life of Rev. James Lawson, the civil rights activist who was friend and advisor to Martin Luther King Jr., from director Joshua Michael Stern (Jobs).
Lucas stars as a washed-up lawyer who in 1976, at Lawson’s request, takes on the case of Grace Walden, the only eyewitness to the man who shot King who had been involuntarily held in a mental institution outside Memphis since the assassination eight years earlier. As the lawyer and his paralegal investigate Walden’s case, they uncover a conspiracy surrounding King’s assassination and risk their careers and lives to bring the truth to light.
Script is by by Donald Freed and Mark Lane, with a rewrite by Stern. Elizabeth Fowler (Official Secrets, Devil’s Knot) and actor Harold Perrineau (MGM+’s From) are producing, with Joe Berlinger (Paradise Lost, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile) exec producing, and Foresight Media Services financing. Fowler and Perrineau are currently in negotiations with additional cast and are targeting a spring kickoff to production.
In a statement to Deadline, producer Fowler said, “”Slay The Dreamer” is a powerful true political thriller that will remind the world of Martin Luther King’s movement that was deliberately derailed by his assassination. We are hopeful that our film and the release of the classified files will finally reveal the true story behind the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.”
Recently starring in the series Palm Royale, Yellowstone and Long Slow Exhale, Lucas is also known for turns in films like Ford v Ferrari, The Lincoln Lawyer, A Beautiful Mind, American Psycho, J. Edgar, Glory Road, and Sweet Home Alabama, among many others. He is repped by WME, Liebman Entertainment, and Hirsch Wallerstein Hayum.
Stern is best known as the creator, executive producer and director of Epix’s Nick Nolte comedy Graves, and for directing the films Jobs, starring Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs, and Swing Vote, starring Kevin Costner. He is repped by Innovative Artists and attorney Darren Trattner.
