EXCLUSIVE: In the wake of a splashy Thursday night TIFF opening night premiere of the Sian Heder-directed Being Heumann, producer Kevin Walsh has two star vehicles happening quickly. He’s next readying Reasonable People, a drama that Cory Finley will direct with Paul Rudd and Sam Rockwell starring. On the series side is The Hawk, which will mark the first major TV series starring vehicle for Casey Affleck. Walsh produced Manchester By The Sea, the film which won Affleck his Oscar and reunited with Affleck on The Instigators.
The Hawk is a crime thriller for Hulu, written by Dave Collard, with Walsh exec producing along with Collard, Affleck, Davey Holmes, Danny Feldheim, Patrick McNamara and Rob Hochberg. Adapted from the Brian Haig-authored book series that began with The President’s Assassin, Affleck will play Sean Drummond, a brilliant JAG lawyer brought in by the CIA after six people are systematically shot and killed in a private DC mansion. Discovering the executions were just a warning shot, Drummond has 72-hours to unravel the conspiracy and prevent a national crisis.
Hulu has committed to shoot a pilot, and the network has ordered other scripts and will likely green light a first season by January. Series is part of a TV slate Walsh Co has assembled under TV group head Danny Feldheim.
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On the film side, Cory Finley’s Reasonable People script will be taken to market seeking backers, with Rudd and Rockwell starring and Walsh lead producer. Pic is a Hatfield-McCoy-style feud set in a contemporary suburban setting. The drama begins after a reckless car crash leaves an architect’s teen daughter brain-damaged. The driver is the son of a wealthy developer, and the tragedy ignites a bitter war of revenge between fathers. It quickly spirals out of control and threatens to destroy both families. Rudd plays the architect and Rockwell plays his drifter brother who shows up after the accident and escalates the stakes between the warring families.
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Walsh ran film for Ridley Scott’s Scott Free before hanging his own shingle and establishing Apple as his base. He has hatched projects including the Hikari-directed Foster The Snowman, and the Justin Lin-directed That Man From Rio, to star Sydney Sweeney.
Walsh ran Scott Free when the director legend made such big scale films as Napoleon, House of Gucci and The Last Duel. Being Heumann — which Walsh produced alongside director Heder, David Permut, John Beach and Kevin Cleary – brought logistical challenges all it own. And it was harder than Heder’s previous film, the Best Picture Oscar winner CODA.
Being Heumann chronicles Judy Heumann as she galvanized a group of handicapped activists into a 28-day takeover of the Federal Building in San Francisco. The goal was to put pressure to have signed into law legislation that would force government buildings to give accessibility to the handicapped. The results were historic; it changed the world for a group kept invisible because of the inability to get access able-bodied folks took for granted. One of the challenges of shooting the film was to accommodate a cast led by Ruth Madeley, most of whom have physical disabilities. Heumann’s is a true hero tale but there is virtue in how Heder could have followed CODA with a mainstream film and a big payday. Instead, she struggled to mount a movie that once again shines a light on people who are too easily marginalized or forgotten.
“There were 12 disabled leads and 40 disabled cast members on certain days,” Walsh told Deadline. “We had to produce a movie within the movie. That’s the real story here, how Sian took all the political capital in Hollywood that she had after she won Best Picture and was like, “Where can I assert this?” She was offered Marvel movies, big franchise movies, you name it, she could have had her pick. But she chose to tell the story that she was really close to. And I think the thing about Sian is, she’s such a rare bird. She can write, she can direct, but she’s also an incredible leader. She’s relentless and so exacting about getting it right. And it’s such a great thing where you have the combination of those three things, and a determination to do things with care and painstaking detail.
“She will not stop until something’s absolutely correct,” Walsh said. “She’s charming and funny and people love her and they like getting behind her. What impressed me most was how she wouldn’t stop and trying to make it better and better and better. But I think she’s drawn to movies about people who have been counted out. She gets behind that and it speaks to who she is as a person.”
Apple, which acquired CODA as it was becoming a Sundance Festival sensation, staked Heder from the beginning on Being Heumann, and it could be another awards season sleeper for Apple. Though it is period – the cast had to surrender their more comfortable wheelchairs for the ‘70s versions that were spectacularly uncomfortable – it is impossible to watch the federal building takeover and not feel that it was a righteous version of the January 6 storming of the Capitol in DC, after a MAGA crowd, emboldened by Donald Trump’s baseless claims of election fixing. They broke into the Capitol to try and stop the certification of Joe Biden’s presidency, assaulting officers with bear spray and brute force. The Heumann-led group took what for them was an extreme action – they called themselves ‘radical crips’ – in pursuit of basic human rights. Theirs was a peaceful protest, and eventually they got the populace on their side. The cast all knew that, and sacrificed to bring that struggle to the screen.
“Because this is a 1977 period movie, we had to transfer them from their normal wheelchairs to period wheelchairs we retrofitted,” Walsh said. “We were giving them breaks every couple hours, getting on-demand masseuses, making sure they had the right nutrients and the right food. If you experience a spinal cord injury, there’s this disrupted communication between the brain and the spinal cord that creates spasms. I found myself one day clutching the hand of one of our actors, Antwan Tolliver, as he’s riding out a spasm because nobody else was there with him. We had this team circling these people at all times, making sure they were healthy and Sian created this world of support.
“The most poignant story, there’s this brilliant actor named Michael Patrick Thornton, who was just on Broadway with Keanu Reeves, and who is a disabled actor,” Walsh said. “He had been working for 25 years in the movie business, and we got him into a makeup trailer one day. We had ripped the end off the makeup trailers and put doors in place and then put lifts outside the trailers so the cast could access it. And this seasoned actor starts to cry and we all wondered what was wrong?
‘He goes, “I’ve been working 25 years and I’ve never seen the inside of a makeup trailer, ever.” It was his first time. And so we did all that work to create this environment where everybody felt like they were the same. That is something we are all very proud of, creating that world.”
Michael Gibson/Apple TV/Courtesy Everett Collection
