EXCLUSIVE: After being forced to halt production with the launch of the SAG-AFTRA strike, the crime drama King Ivory from writer-director John Swab (Ida Red) is back up and running once again, in and around Tulsa, OK, having been named just recently as one of 39 productions that will benefit from a SAG Interim Agreement.
Previously unannounced actors who have been able to return to set, pursuant to the agreement, include James Badge Dale (The Departed), Ben Foster (Hell or High Water), Michael Mando (Better Call Saul), Rory Cochrane (Black Mass), Ritchie Coster (The Dark Knight), George Carroll (The Town), Sam Quartin (Candy Land), Academy Award nominee Graham Greene (Dances with Wolves) and Academy Award winner Melissa Leo (The Fighter).
While production on the majority of studio projects has been shuttered, amidst a dual strike by SAG-AFTRA and the WGA, the actors guild is offering interim agreements to the projects of “truly independent producers,” with no affiliation to the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the understanding being that these producers will be bound retroactively to contract terms secured once the SAG-AFTRA strike resolves.
Based on extensive research involving Oklahoma law enforcement and active gang members, King Ivory offers a never-before-seen, authentic look inside the underworld of fentanyl trafficking from gangs inside the Oklahoma State Penitentiary at McAlester a.k.a. “Big Mac.” With potency 100 times that of heroin and nearly undetectable at the border, the drug nicknamed King Ivory has flooded the market, triggering a tidal wave of overdoses, crime and addiction.
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