Melissa Leo, Michael K. Williams, Frank Grillo, Alice Englert and Jack Kilmer to star in crime-thriller ‘Body Brokers’
Academy Award-winner Melissa Leo (The Fighter, The Big Short) and SAG Award-winner and Emmy-nominee Michael K. Williams (HBO’s The Wire, Netflix’s When They See Us), have been cast alongside Frank Grillo (Avengers: Endgame, The Purge), Alice Englert (Beautiful Creatures, Them That Follow), and Jack Kilmer (The Nice Guys, The Stanford Prison Experiment) in the new crime-thriller, Body Brokers, being written and directed by John Swab.
Body Brokers is the true and untold story of the multibillion-dollar drug and alcohol treatment scheme where former drug addicts and dealers become millionaires as fly-by-night “body brokers”, recruiting other addicts to seek treatment and selling these patients off to facilities paying the highest price. Utah (Jack Kilmer) and his girlfriend Opal (Alice Englert), are drug addicts living on the streets in rural Ohio. After getting recruited by body broker Wood (Michael Kenneth Williams), and offered treatment in Los Angeles, Wood takes Utah under his wing and introduces him to treatment center mogul Vin (Frank Grillo). Wood and Vin bring Utah in on their lucrative and illegal dealings, where saving lives comes second to the bottom line. Melissa Leo will take on the role as the resident treatment center shrink, Dr. White.
The film is being produced by Jeremy M. Rosen (Dog Eat Dog, Charlie Says), Robert Ogden Barnum (Margin Call, All is Lost) as well as Swab for Roxwell Films. The latest Roxwell Films’ release, Charlie Says (directed by Mary Harron of American Psycho and starring Hannah Murray and Matt Smith), premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival and was released domestically by IFC Films.
Swab’s first feature, Let Me Make You a Martyr, starring Marilyn Manson, was released by FilmRise in 2017. His latest feature, Run With the Hunted, starring Michael Pitt, Ron Perlman and Dree Hemingway, will premiere at festivals in the fall with domestic sales being handled by CAA Media Finance.
Melissa Leo is repped by CAA and Untitled Entertainment, Michael Kenneth Williams is repped by WME and Silver Lining Entertainment, Frank Grillo is repped by CAA and Paul Hastings, Alice Englert is repped by CAA, and Jack Kilmer is repped by CAA and Authentic Talent & Literary Management.
Body Brokers is set to commence principal photography in August 2019. CAA Media Finance will represent domestic sales on the film, with Voltage Pictures handling international sales.
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
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