EXCLUSIVE: Rob Morgan (Smile) will produce and star within the crime movie Dixie Crystal, based mostly on the real-life FBI Operation of the identical identify, from brother filmmakers Conor and Jake Allyn (No Man’s Land).

The movie from Riverside Entertainment and Stride Management facilities on FBI particular agent Jim Anderson (Morgan), who faces the overwhelming job of ridding methamphetamine from Harlan, Kentucky — a sprawling mountain ghetto policed by solely a handful of lawmen. Over the course of the pic, Jim finds himself pitted in opposition to a former coal union boss turned drug kingpin. With a special pores and skin colour and a badge which means little within the hollers, he recruits native cop, Harlan native and recovering addict Cam (Jake Allyn) to help. They begin an investigation into domestically made meth, or “Dixie Crystal,” and the locals behind it. But the deeper the investigation goes, the extra Jim realizes that the medicine he’s chasing, and the miners cooking them, are the one issues holding this neighborhood alive. In this county, meth is the brand new coal.

Dixie Crystal was developed and packaged by Stride Management, which reps each Morgan and Jake Allyn. Conor Allyn will direct from Jake Allyn’s script. Morgan will produce with the Allyn brothers’ Margate House Films (No Man’s Land, Edge of the World) and Riverside Entertainment’s Brian Loschiavo, Pastor Alvarado and Jeff Molyneaux (Manodrome, Bluebird), who will even finance alongside Matt Shelton, Josh Peters (The Lighthouse) and exec producer Tony Herbert. 

The movie is slated to shoot in West Virginia and Kentucky in April 2023 and is partnered with Brooke’s House, an all-women restoration home run by former narcotics officer Kevin Simmers, which offers an on-set job abilities program for its members.

“Drugs and our war against them has become a pervasive part of American culture,” Conor Allyn informed Deadline. “Rob is the perfect blend of strength and humanity to embody that conflict.”

Morgan just lately appeared in Paramount’s horror smash Smile and has additionally been seen in movies together with the Oscar-nominated Mudbound and Don’t Look Up, amongst many others. Notable TV credit embrace HBO’s Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty and Netflix’s Stranger Things. Also arising for the actor is Lee Daniels’ horror-thriller The Deliverance for Netflix.

Jake Allyn first garnered consideration together with his collection common function on BET’s drama The Quad and most just lately wrote and starred within the fashionable Western No Man’s Land, launched by IFC Films, which his brother Conor directed. The Allyns based the genre-focused Margate House Films in 2009. The firm’s biopic Edge of the World was launched by Samuel Goldwyn, with its Mexican co-production I’m No Longer Here being launched by Netflix after premiering at Tribeca and being named as Mexico’s official Oscar entry for Best International Feature.

The L.A.- and Nashville-based improvement and manufacturing firm Riverside Entertainment is led by filmmaker companions Loschiavo, Molyneaux and Alvarado. Its previous and present tasks embrace the characteristic music docs Bluebird and Midland: The Sonic Ranch (CMT), in addition to the Outfest-premiering soccer doc First Down, and collection together with Making Modern with Brooke and Brice (Magnolia Network), On the Record (ABC) and Disney Insider (Disney+). The studio’s first characteristic Manodrome, starring Jesse Eisenberg and Adrien Brody, is slated for an early 2023 launch.

Morgan can be with Yorn, Levine, Barnes; Jake Allyn, with Buchwald.