Producer: #8216;Honeydripper#039; may be Glover#039;s, Dutton#039;s #8216;best work ever#039;
Published 12:00 am Saturday, June 9, 2007
Butler County residents interested in browsing photographs of selected scenes and location shots from “Honeydripper” can find them on-line at the distributor's website.
The movie - filmed in Butler County during the fall of 2006 and starring acclaimed actor Danny Glover - is scheduled for release in February 2008, according to an on-line blog at www.emergingpictures.com created by producer Maggie Renzi. Director John Sayles' southern Blues' tale stars Glover, Charles S. Dutton, Stacy Keach, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Yaya DaCosta and host of extras hailing from Butler County.
In her blog posted on May 1, Renzi stated: “John (Sayles) and I have been really busy finishing “Honeydripper” and setting it up for its release in early 2008ŠHold on: If I can wait, you can wait. We're going to take the time we need to create awareness of “Honeydripper” so that when it comes out everybody is there at the door of their local theater, just waiting to be let in.”
Renzi wrote that the film “played really well” to potential promotional partners in Los Angeles and Seattle.
She also mentions two Greenville Middle School students by name, Abasolm Adams and Nagee Clay. Both boys had feature roles in the film.
“Absalom,” wrote Renzi, “You are so good in the movie. Absalom and Nagee play Lonnie and Scratch. They start and end the movie and pop up throughout it. Everyone loves it when you two come on the screen.”
She also praised the work of both Glover and Dutton, the popular star of the 90s sitcom “Roc” who also had a memorable film role in “Rudy.”
“We are hoping to open the movie in a few cities at the very end of 2007 to qualify for the Oscars (some people say this is Danny Glover and Charles Dutton's best work ever). Then we'll have some premieres on MLK (Martin Luther King) Day before the movie opens wide during February, which is Black History Month,” said Renzi.
It is likely the movie could premier in Greenville's new Edge Theatre in the fall. The theatre is slated to open in July. Mayor Dexter McLendon said the city is pushing to have the premier here.
Renzi said the producers are trying to make that happen.
“We're working on doing special things to open the movie in the South, especially in Alabama,” Renzi writes in her blog, posted on May 1.