We want to be first in line next year when the movie Deadline, based on Mark Ethridge’s novel Grievances, arrives in theaters. The movie stars Steve Talley (Brothers & Sisters) and Academy Award nominee Eric Roberts (Runaway Train, Heroes, Entourage) as newspaper reporters working to solve a twenty year-old civil rights murder in South Carolina; the story is based on actual events from Ethridge’s work as a newspaper reporter.
Director Curt Hahn expects to shoot most of the film in Tennessee, using financial incentives created by the state to bring in more film crews. As reported by The Tennessean in the article "Nashville gets another taste of Hollywood" about the film, Hahn expected to recruit most of the film’s actors from the West Coast, but found a wealth of talent in Tennessee, and most of the film’s actors hail from the area.
Many of Deadline’s newsroom scenes will be shot at The Tennessean, and a video on the newspaper’s website site interviews Ethridge and Executive Producer Hunter Atkins. Regarding a scene that takes place amidst the presses in the Tennessean’s basement, Atkins notes that Deadline shows "kind a view of the newspaper that people really don’t get to see very often in movies [and] we think that makes it unusual."
Ethridge, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, first reported the story of the civil rights murder when he worked at the Charlotte Observer in the 1970s and 1980s. Ethridge told the Tennesean that the book and movie are "really a movie about how one person can make a difference." Pat Conroy called Grievances "a beautifully written, compelling tale of race and redemption … one of the most deeply satisfying novels I have read in a long, long time."
Learn more about Deadline at the movie’s official website, DeadlineFilm.com. You can read more about filming at the Tennessean and watch a video interview with Mark Ethridge at their website.
Grievances is available direct from NewSouth Books, Amazon.com or your favorite local or online bookstore.