Dwight Henry, who parlayed a riveting turn in “Beasts of the Southern Wild” into an appearance in Steve McQueen‘s Oscar-winning “12 Years a Slave,” has signed on to join Barkhad Abdi in the indie drama “Wolf Who Cried Boy,” TheWrap has learned.
Luke Jaden and Cort Johns will direct from a script they co-wrote together. Torrey Wigfield (“Lost River”) and Peter Carey (“Real Steel”) co-star in the film, which starts production next month in Detroit.
The anti-coming-of-age story centers on a young man who gets swept into the seedy underbelly of the scrapping industry. Abdi, the Oscar-nominated star of “Captain Phillips,” will play a limo driver who acts as a fence for stolen copper, while Henry will play Koney, a no-nonsense junkyard owner.
“Wolf Who Cried Boy” is a co-production between Troika, Mother and Midwife Pictures and Friel Films in association with SOS Prods. The film’s producers are Anthony Ernest Garth, Friel’s Phil Wurtzel, Andrew Ford and Michael Angelo Zervos. Executive producers are Frank Capra III, Andy Henry and Troika’s Jaden and Johns.
Best known for his prominent role as Wink, Hushpuppy’s father, in Benh Zeitlin‘s Oscar-nominated film “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” Henry will next star alongside Armie Hammer and Gabrielle Union in Nate Parker’s upcoming drama “The Birth of a Nation,” and in Julien Temple’s Marvin Gaye biopic “Sexual Healing.” Henry is represented by Brian Hannula at Alliance Sports & Entertainment.