Tag: row-k-entertainment

‘Dead Man’s Wire’ Press Conference With Gus Van Sant
(L to R) Kelly Lynch, director Gus Van Sant, Al Pacino and Colman Domingo attend Row K’s ‘Dead Man’s Wire’ Los Angeles Premiere at The Grove AMC on January 7, 2026 in Los Angeles.

Set in 1977 and based on a true story, ‘Dead Man’s Wire‘ follows Tony Kiritsis, a former real estate developer who puts a dead man’s switch on himself and the mortgage banker who did him wrong, while demanding $5 million and a personal apology.
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Moviefone was in attendance at a recent press conference, in which director Gus Van Sant and writer Austin Kolodney shared behind-the-scenes details and discuss adapting a true story for the screen.

Related Article: Director Gus Van Sant Talks New Crime Thriller ‘Dead Man’s Wire’

1) Gus Van Sant Was Interested In ‘Dead Man’s Wire’ Because It Was Going To Be Filmed Almost Immediately

(L to R) Dacre Montgomery as Richard ‘Dick’ Hall and Bill Skarsgård as Tony Kiritsis in ‘Dead Man’s Wire’. Photo: Row K Entertainment

When asked about what drew him to the project, Gus Van Sant shockingly explains that it mostly had to do with the shooting timeline.

Gus Van Sant: I joined on with the knowledge that it was shooting in Louisville, Kentucky. And it was shooting very quickly. This was September of last year, and Cassian Elwes, the producer, was planning to shoot in November. I was intrigued by the whole situation of having to do something right away and not even knowing what it was about. Kind of… I didn’t really say yes. I did read the script before I said yes.

2) Austin Kolodney First Heard About Tony Karitsis On A Podcast

Bill Skarsgård as Tony Kiritsis in ‘Dead Man’s Wire’. Photo: Row K Entertainment.

Writer Austin Kolodney first heard about this true story on a podcast and wondered to himself why it wasn’t a movie. So he wrote a script.

Austin Kolodney: I first heard it mentioned on a podcast. A producer, Jamie Vernon, had mentioned the name and the crime, and I had my antenna up. This is the height of COVID in 2020, during that summer. And I was actively looking for something to write. I had written a couple other features, like smaller indie things that I would want to direct, but I was like, I need to try and get something made soon to pay off credit card debt, get the career started, I can’t just keep Lyft driving. So, I was actively looking for something that I think would be a movie, and when I heard about Tony, went down this rabbit hole, some podcasts, there’s a great dollop episode about him, and then there’s this one YouTube video that I used as a hyperlink, because it had this 5-minute summation of this really grainy texture, archival footage shot, highlight reel ofTony slipping on the ice, and cracking jokes at the cops, and laughing at them, and getting them to laugh with him, and then asking for water, and having to hold the gun and drink it like a baby bird, and for some reason that crystallized the movie for me. I’m like, how has this not been made into a movie? So I started developing it as a movie.

3) Austin Kolodney Included Hyperlinks To Videos In His Initial Script

(L to R) Dacre Montgomery as Richard ‘Dick’ Hall and Bill Skarsgård as Tony Kiritsis in ‘Dead Man’s Wire’. Photo: Row K Entertainment

Gus Van Sant says that Austin Kolodney’s inclusion of hyperlinks in the script helped him to understand who Tony Karitsis really was.

Gus Van Sant: You could see very clearly the guy, Tony Karitsis’ personality, partly due to the hyperlinks that were connected in the script to his actual voice. You could hear the real guy, who was very intriguing, and so within just a few moments, I don’t know that I wasn’t conscious of I guess it was obvious that he was a desperate underdog character that resembled other characters that I’d done before.

4) Austin Kolodney Is Drawn To True Crime, But He Doesn’t Want To Be Pigeonholed In That Genre

Cary Elwes as Michael Grable in ‘Dead Man’s Wire’. Photo: Row K Entertainment

When asked about what it was that truly interested him about this story, Austin Kolodney admits that he loves true crime, but that he also has the ability to write other genres.

Austin Kolodney: I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t like a good crime movie. A lot of great American films are crime movies, and I don’t know if true crime is necessarily how I want to corner myself as a storyteller. I’ve had a couple other scripts written prior to this one that aren’t at all in this realm. I continue to see, I guess, any article or book or footage of a true event that has a character that is very rich and very textured and feels like someone that I would want to see on the screen for an hour and a half, two hours. That’s what draws me to it. It’s more the person, the criminal, I guess, not necessarily the act of crime, it’s the personality and the three-dimensionality of the person that’s at the center of it, is what draws me to a story.

5) Bill Skarsgård Almost Wasn’t The Lead Of ‘Dead Man’s Wire’

(L to R) Dacre Montgomery and Bill Skarsgard in ‘Dead Man’s Wire.’ Photo: Row K Entertainment.

Director Gus Van Sant admits that he thought Bill Skarsgård was great for the lead role of ‘Dead Man’s Wire’, but details how he almost didn’t take the role.

Gus Van Sant: I had tried to get Bill in another film that was simultaneous. It was canceled right about the same time that I was joining onto ‘Dead Man’s Wire’, and I had asked him to play a smaller part, and he said it would be interesting if he wasn’t playing a lead somewhere else. So I was thinking of him for a while, just working with him, and putting him into things where he wasn’t even the lead character. I hadn’t worked with him. In this case, he seemed to work for the lead character. So I turned around and said, oh, there’s a lead character on this one. He was busy. So he was fitting it in between projects. But yeah, he seemed to be game. I mean, partly, maybe because I worked with his dad, Stellan (Skarsgård) in ‘Good Will Hunting‘. He had actually come to the set, but he was like 7 years old. There’s a picture I have of him and the big family that was visiting Stellan.

Al Pacino as M/L/ Hall in ‘Dead Man’s Wire’. Photo: Row K Entertainment

What is the plot of ‘Dead Man’s Wire’?

The film is inspired by the 1977 Indianapolis hostage standoff involving Tony Kiritsis (Bill Skarsgård) and centers on the escalation of a public confrontation shaped by negotiation, media attention, and law enforcement response.

Who is in the cast of ‘Dead Man’s Wire’?
- Bill Skarsgård as Tony Kiritsis
- Dacre Montgomery as Richard Hall
- Cary Elwes as Detective Michael Grable
- Myha’la as Linda Page
- Colman Domingo as Fred Temple
- Al Pacino as M.L. Hall
- John Robinson as John the Cameraman
- Kelly Lynch as Mabel Hall
‘Dead Man’s Wire’ opens in theaters on January 16th. Photo: Row K Entertainment.

List of Movies Directed by Gus Van Sant:
- ‘Mala Noche‘ (1988)
- ‘Drugstore Cowboy’ (1989)
- ‘My Own Private Idaho’ (1991)
- ‘Even Cowgirls Get the Blues’ (1993)
- ‘To Die For’ (1995)
- ‘Good Will Hunting’ (1997)
- ‘Psycho’ (1998)
- ‘Finding Forrester’ (2000)
- ‘Gerry’ (2002)
- ‘Elephant’ (2003)
- ‘Last Days’ (2005)
- ‘Paranoid Park’ (2007)
- ‘Milk’ (2008)
- ‘Restless’ (2011)
- ‘Promised Land’ (2012)
- ‘The Sea of Trees’ (2015)
- ‘Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot‘ (2018)
- ‘Dead Man’s Wire‘ (2026)
Buy Tickets: ‘Dead Man’s Wire’ Movie Showtimes

Buy Gus Van Sant movies and TV on Amazon
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January 17, 2026
‘Dead Man’s Wire’ Interview: Director Gus Van Sant
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Opening in theaters on January 16th is the new crime thriller ‘Dead Man’s Wire‘, which is based on a true story and directed by acclaimed filmmaker Gus Van Sant (‘My Own Private Idaho’ and ‘Good Will Hunting’).
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The film stars Bill Skarsgård (‘Nosferatu‘), Dacre Montgomery (‘Power Rangers‘), Cary Elwes (‘The Princess Bride‘), Myha’la (‘Dumb Money‘), Colman Domingo (‘Sing Sing‘), and Oscar winner Al Pacino (‘The Godfather‘).

(L to R) Al Pacino and director Gus Van Sant attend Row K’s ‘Dead Man’s Wire’ Los Angeles Premiere at The Grove AMC on January 7, 2026 in Los Angeles.

Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with iconic filmmaker Gus Van Sant about his work on ‘Dead Man’s Wire’, his first reaction to the unusual screenplay, creating the specific look of the film, casting Bill Skarsgård, directing the legendary Al Pacino, and the importance of the music in the movie.

You can read the full interview below or click on the video player above to watch our interviews with Van Sant, Dacre Montgomery, Cary Elwes and Myha’la.

Related Article: Moviefone’s 25 Best Movies of 2025: The Definitive Ranking

‘Dead Man’s Wire’ director Gus Van Sant.

Moviefone: To begin with, I understand that the script came with links to actual news footage from the true story that the movie is based on. Can you talk about your first reaction to the screenplay and how the real footage helped you envision how you wanted to make this film?

Gus Van Sant: Yeah, there were actual links to footage, which had been posted to YouTube. You could hear the real Tony Kiritsis talking to the police for the first time when he was in the middle of kidnapping his mortgage broker in 1977. Then there was also the footage of them walking across town with the dead man’s wire rig attached to his captive and the police following them, and the drive to his house in the police car that he commandeers. All these things were peppered throughout the script so you could get a very strong sense of the event, the demands, and the final Press conference that they have was also in the hyperlinks. I mean, it helped just envision what you thought of the actual event. You know, it was complete, true footage of the actual event. So, from there, you had a lot of information. It helped me visually because it was set in the ‘70s and all the little parts of the visuals were in some of the footage that was part of the script. You could see the real people, the real police, the real Indianapolis locations, the real cars that they were driving and the real apartment exterior, not the interior of the apartment. But that was the atmosphere you could see. It just affected everything about bringing it to life for us in Louisville, Kentucky, which wasn’t Indianapolis (where the true story took place).

(L to R) Dacre Montgomery as Richard ‘Dick’ Hall and Bill Skarsgård as Tony Kiritsis in ‘Dead Man’s Wire’. Photo: Row K Entertainment.

MF: The film itself looks like a movie that would have been released in the 1970s, at the time that the story takes place. Can you talk about how you achieved that specific look?

GVS: It was all the different departments working together. Our production designer, our costumer and whoever else was involved in the look, the DP, his crew, the lighting personnel, they were all queuing off photographs of the period. In my case, I was I was glued to photography by William Eggleston, who shot photographs in Memphis, Tennessee, which is nearby. I mean, part of that Midwest feel and the colors within that, and our DP, was interested in the movie ‘Klute’. Visually, he thought it had a lot to do with what we wanted to be doing. The original photography that was in the documentaries had a greenish color to it, which was interesting, that we liked. We were trying to keep away from maybe things we’d seen that resemble the ‘70s, which are browns that I felt weren’t really representing the ‘70s well, because there was a lot of color back there. I mean, it just all came together, everyone together in unison, not really knowing, because you’re always striving to have this fantastic result and hopefully you get there, but we’re always working in the dark, sort of.

Bill Skarsgård as Tony Kiritsis in ‘Dead Man’s Wire’. Photo: Row K Entertainment.

MF: Can you talk about casting Bill Skarsgård and what he brought to the role of Tony Kiritsis?

GVS: Bill was, to me, sort of a man of a thousand faces. He had done roles that sometimes were very similar, like “The Crow’ or he was in ‘Boy Kills World’, which was possibly a similar character, yet quite different. He made them quite different. His performance in ‘It’ was a big one. He showed me some things that he had done in Europe that weren’t as extreme characters and more like him being almost himself, that I got to see, which I hadn’t seen. He seemed like the guy for a job like this. Like, almost in, I want to say, a Peter Sellers way. He could transform himself.

Al Pacino in ‘Dead Man’s Wire.’ Photo: Row K Entertainment.

MF: What was your experience like directing the legendary Al Pacino? Had you ever met him before working with him on this project?

GVS: I hadn’t met him. I had seen him at a party, but I hadn’t ever met him and spoke to him before. He had done a film with Harmony Korine, where Harmony was playing a character in a smaller project that Al was the lead in and he was working in a junk shop, I think. Our first meeting was really on the phone talking about the whole story and the part his character played in it, and he had a desire to make it a little bigger, which we attempted to do. Austin (Kolodney) wrote some extra stuff. We did do rehearsals with Al and Dacre and Bill together for the phone calls. It was all quite exciting because when Bill’s in character he’s quite crazy and wild. So, it affected Al. He realized, “Oh, we’re in the real thing now.” Which he’s of course used to, but these guys could deliver it. So, working with him was great. I mean, it was fast. We had one day to shoot all his scenes, but it was a lot of fun.

Colman Domingo in ‘Dead Man’s Wire.’ Photo: Row K Entertainment.

MF: Finally, music plays an important role in this movie, as it does in all your films. Can you talk about your musical choices, and mixing specific songs from the period with contemporary music?

GVS: The DJ concept was very interesting because I felt like I had listened to the radio in the ‘60s, not ‘70s, but it was a very important New York area experience, where the counterculture of the ‘60s was present in the DJs. So, they were on your side, and they were playing, now it’s classic rock, but at the time it was like extended rock and roll. So, you’d have songs that were like 10 minutes long with guitar solos and so forth. Because Colman Domingo was able to play the part, there was a DJ that I really liked on WNEW in New York named Rosko (William Roscoe Mercer). You can find his shows on YouTube today. So, I sent some of those shows to Colman and he was playing songs that were backgrounds to poetry that he would read over the songs. The poetry was mostly about the Vietnam War and about gladiators and the trials of that period. They were very emotional, very dramatic and very political. So, we used Colman’s character to have that vibe and have that idea, as opposed to the reality of the real DJ, who was more of a newscaster. So, we kind of took liberty with that character to give him color, and to give the DJ more of a voice in the whole thing, because he does end up brokering the whole story.

(L to R) Dacre Montgomery and Bill Skarsgard in ‘Dead Man’s Wire.’ Photo: Row K Entertainment.

What is the plot of ‘Dead Man’s Wire’?

The film is inspired by the 1977 Indianapolis hostage standoff involving Tony Kiritsis (Bill Skarsgård) and centers on the escalation of a public confrontation shaped by negotiation, media attention, and law enforcement response.

Who is in the cast of ‘Dead Man’s Wire’?
- Bill Skarsgård as Tony Kiritsis
- Dacre Montgomery as Richard Hall
- Cary Elwes as Detective Michael Grable
- Myha’la as Linda Page
- Colman Domingo as Fred Temple
- Al Pacino as M.L. Hall
- John Robinson as John the Cameraman
- Kelly Lynch as Mabel Hall
‘Dead Man’s Wire’ opens in theaters on January 16th. Photo: Row K Entertainment.

List of Movies Directed by Gus Van Sant:
- ‘Mala Noche‘ (1988)
- ‘Drugstore Cowboy’ (1989)
- ‘My Own Private Idaho’ (1991)
- ‘Even Cowgirls Get the Blues’ (1993)
- ‘To Die For’ (1995)
- ‘Good Will Hunting’ (1997)
- ‘Psycho’ (1998)
- ‘Finding Forrester’ (2000)
- ‘Gerry’ (2002)
- ‘Elephant’ (2003)
- ‘Last Days’ (2005)
- ‘Paranoid Park’ (2007)
- ‘Milk’ (2008)
- ‘Restless’ (2011)
- ‘Promised Land’ (2012)
- ‘The Sea of Trees’ (2015)
- ‘Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot‘ (2018)
- ‘Dead Man’s Wire‘ (2026)
Buy Tickets: ‘Dead Man’s Wire’ Movie Showtimes

Buy Gus Van Sant movies and TV on Amazon
January 13, 2026