WME Independent Launching Domestic Sales On John Swab’s Fentanyl Crime Thriller ‘King Ivory’ Out Of Venice

EXCLUSIVE: WME Independent announced on Wednesday that they will be launching domestic sales on King Ivory, the starry crime thriller written and directed by John Swab (Ida Red), at this year’s Venice Film Festival, where the film is world premiering in competition.

Based on extensive research involving Oklahoma law enforcement and active gang members, King Ivory offers a never-before-seen, authentic look inside the underworld of fentanyl trafficking from gangs inside the Oklahoma State Penitentiary at McAlester a.k.a. “Big Mac.” With potency 100 times that of heroin and nearly undetectable at the border, the drug nicknamed King Ivory has flooded the market, triggering a tidal wave of overdoses, crime and addiction. The film chronicles the efforts of a joint local, state and federal task force to prevent the trafficking of the Irish Mob’s George “Smiley” Greene (Ben Foster), his mother Ginger (Melissa Leo) and uncle Mickey (Ritchie Coster), in partnership with the Indian Brotherhood’s Holt (Graham Greene) and the New Generation Mexican cartel’s Ramón (Michael Mando).

In a statement to Deadline on the project, Swab said: “To prepare for this script, I spent a lot of time with families of addicts, active junkies, government officials, cops, trafficked migrants, criminals, cartel members, and prisoners. My goal was to capture an unapologetic and authentic snapshot of our current reality – from all sides. A lot of people from my research have since passed away, been deported, incarcerated, or are still out there. What I came away with was empathy for everyone involved.”

Shot last summer, in and around Tulsa, OK, under a SAG Interim Agreement — necessitated by the SAG-AFTRA strike — the film also stars James Badge Dale (The Departed), Rory Cochrane (Black Mass), George Carroll (The Town), Sam Quartin (Candy Land), and newcomer Jasper Jones.

Jeremy M. Rosen (Ida Red, Candy Land) produced under his Roxwell Films banner, in his eighth collaboration with Swab, with Ali Jazayeri and Viviana Zarragoitia of Three Point Capital serving as executive producers.

For Rosen and Swab, King Ivory comes on the heels of efforts like the Lionsgate crime thriller One Day as a Lion, starring Scott Caan, Frank Grillo and J.K. Simmons, the Paramount crime thriller Little Dixie, which premiered to a sold-out Rotterdam crowd, and the slasher Candy Land, which premiered at the Locarno Film Festival, to name just a few. At present, a series adaptation of King Ivory is among the upcoming projects the duo have in the works.