With a solid cast and an unsettling but true-life back-story, Atom Egoyan's Devil's Knot already has a lot going for it. Set to star Reese Witherspoon and Colin Firth, the crime thriller is based on a 2002 bestselling book by investigative journalist Mara Leveritt, which tells the story of the investigation and trial of three Arkansas teens charged with the murder of three small boys. Worldview announced today that Egoyan's feature adaptation of the big has begun principal photography in Atlanta, GA.
The story of the West Memphis Three - as accused teens Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley, Jr. and Jason Baldwin were known - is fairly well known, due at least in part to a 1996 documentary called Paradise Lost: The Child Murders of Robin Hood Hills, which documented the trials and reaction of the people of the Arkansas town of West Memphis as they dealt with the tragedy and the conviction of the three teens, who were believed to have killed the children as some kind of satanic ritual. The accused were released from prison last year on an Alford plea, and HBO later premiered the third installment to what came to be a trilogy of documentaries, closing out the story, at least from the perspective of the three convicted men. The mystery involving the the children's murders is still believed to be unsolved by those who are convinced the Three are innocent.
Based on Leveritt's Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three with Scott Derrickson and Paul Harris Boardman behind the screenplay, Egoyan's Devil's Knot has Colin Firth and Reese Witherspoon set to star, with Allesandro Nivola, Stephen Moyer, Amy Ryan, Matt Letscher, Michael Gladis, Rex Linn, Mireille Enos, Dane DeHaan and Bruce Greenwood also set to appear.
It should be interesting to see how the story is told from a dramatic perspective on the big screen.
