It's not often that a director gets to tackle a story in which they could conceivably appear, but Ron Shelton is working on a movie based on a true tale he was a small part of, Escape Artist.
Shelton has written a script with Al Reinhert about Ed "Hacksaw" Jones, who broke out of 14 prisons in his time after being falsely sentenced to 10 years of hard labour on a chain gang. Spending his life on the run, he re-invented his identity and stayed ahead of the FBI until they finally nabbed him and stuck him in a maximum security prison that no one had ever escaped from. Bet you can guess what happened next...
"I got to know Ed well when he rented a house in the Hollywood Hills from me after I moved out," Shelton says. "Ed was the greatest tenant in history: The bed was always made with the sheets tucked in without a wrinkle, the house was spotless, he changed the locks so even I couldn’t get in, and he paid six months in advance – all cash! We’d sit around drinking his beloved Chivas Regal, and the stories would start flowing till the bottle was drained. Though much of his life was stolen from him by a cruel and flawed criminal justice system, he managed to live a thousand wondrous lives with the time he had."
With backing from Gold Star Films and Signature Films, Shelton is aiming to shoot in and around New Orleans. His latest film, Just Getting Started, is due out later this year.
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