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Reese Witherspoon Set to Star in West Memphis 3 Film 'Devil's Knot'

by Ethan Anderton
December 16, 2011
Source: Deadline

Though producer Peter Jackson just recently announced a production wrap on West of Memphis, the documentary about the murder defendants known as the West Memphis 3 who were recently released from prison after 18 years of wrongful incarceration, development on the dramatized version of the story is finall moving forward. In August we learned that Chloe director Atom Egoyan was slated to start production on Devil's Knot, the story of three men imprisoned for the murder of three 8-year old boys until new DNA evidence seemed to prove the trio's innocence. Now Deadline says Reese Witherspoon is in talks to star.

Witherspoon would play Pam Hobbs, the mother of one of the murder victims who initially believes the trio murdered her son, but is eventually persuaded that the three suspects are innocent and wrongly accused. This isn't a project that came together quickly due to the relevance of the defendants and their innocence as the project has been in the works since 2006 when The Exorcism of Emily Rose writers Scott Derrickson and Paul Boardman wrote the script and set up the film at Dimension Films before it was put into turnaround. Right now the plan is to finance the film independently and if Witherspoon is involved, it shouldn't be so hard to secure funding and find a distributor for this intriguing and tragic story.

Filed under Casting, Development, Movie News

From around the web:

DAVIDPD

Sounds like it could be really good. And the director will hopefully do the story some justice, although I hope it doesn't get too heavy handed with where the guilt should have landed. And we all know Ms. Witherspoon likes her Southern accents.
peloquin

This sounds like Boy A, but since this project is based on a true story I'll definitely still be looking forward to it.
David Banner

DNA freed them, but they were forced to sign legal documents saying they admit they did it, right? So....if they are innocent, but have signed off that they did it; will the case ever get solved and a real conviction? If the police/fbi find the real killer(s), would the real killer(s) get a sentence, or are they off the hook, since the West Memphis 3 signed this document? Hmmm...this almost sounds like another movie, based on the same case.
Horseflesh

I'm glad these guys are freed, its just insane how someone is still out there who did this. You gotta be truelly evil to do something like that then 3 other kids lives are practically destroyed.