Michael Sheen will make his directorial debut with Green River Killer, a true-crime thriller about Gary Ridgway, America’s most prolific serial killer.
Ridgway, a trucker who carried out the majority of his crimes during the early 1980s, claimed to have killed as many as 71 women, but also said during police questioning that he had “lost count”.
He was convicted of murdering 49 women in 2003, and was spared the death sentence through a plea deal by which he agreed to lead the police to the remains of missing victims.
Sheen, who wrote the film, will also star as Ridgway. His screenplay is based on the graphic novel Green River Killer: A Detective Story, which was written by Jeff Jensen, the son of Tom Jensen, a detective who spent 20 years on the case. “This is a dark story but one that ultimately finds hope and meaning in that darkness,” said Sheen in a statement.
“The story of Tom and Gary, and how they are bound together in time, pulled me in from the beginning and wouldn’t let go. I hope that by now bringing it to life on screen, it can make audiences feel the same way.”
Sheen, the star of the Showtime series Masters of Sex, will next appear in Passengers. Sony’s space epic stars Chris Pratt as an astronaut who wakes from deep sleep too soon and — realising he will be left alone — decides to wake up a crewmate (Jennifer Lawrence). Sheen co-stars as a robot that plays third wheel to their intergalactic romance.
