Do you know what’s better than just one true crime film about a subject? Two true crime films about a subject! And if you need to make a feature-length narrative and a feature-length doc about a crime, the man to call is filmmaker Joe Berlinger. At least, that’s what it seems like now.
Deadline is reporting that Berlinger has been hired to helm the narrative feature, “Slay the Dreamer,” as well as direct a documentary about the real-life story that inspired the film. “Slay the Dreamer” covers the story of Rev. James Lawson, who was a friend and advisor for Martin Luther King, Jr. and is at the forefront of the movement to prove that James Earl Ray did not kill MLK.
The film follows the true story of Lawson’s discovery that the only eye-witness to the murder, Grace Walden, was being held under a fake name in a mental institution following the assassination. She was locked away for years, after she turned down the $100,000 reward from the FBI and refused to sign an affidavit claiming that James Earl Ray was the gunman.
“This is an extremely painful chapter of American history that for many remains unresolved,” Berlinger said. “In this era of accountability and racial division, I am extremely humbled at the prospect of working with Revered Lawson to shine a light on what really happened that fateful day 51 years ago.”
The filmmaker has been in the news recently due to his double-duty working on the story of infamous serial killer Ted Bundy. Berlinger, who is most famous for his “Paradise Lost” films that followed the story of the West Memphis 3, helmed both the true crime docu-series “Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes,” as well as the upcoming Netflix feature film “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile,” starring Zac Efron as Bundy.
Now, he hopes to bring his true crime acumen and filmmaking ability to tell the story of Lawson and his quest to find out what happened to his deceased friend, the civil rights icon King, Jr.
“On April 4, 1968, James Earl Ray did not assassinate or fire a gun at Martin Luther King Jr. and the evidence is overwhelming beyond a shadow of doubt,” Lawson said. “Ray was selected as a patsy for the planners of the assassination, which was a major part of the ‘politics of assassination’ of the 1960s that changed the history of our nation toward tyranny. This film uncovers a critical portion of the important truth about the assassinations of the 1960s which has led to where we are today as a nation. The politics of assassination is a major cause of the broken systems in U.S. society today. We the people of the USA need this film to help us recover a compass towards justice and truth.”
Obviously, no release date has been set for the documentary or the feature film, but we’ll keep you posted as news is released.