Roe v. Wade (film)

Roe v. Wade is an upcoming American political legal drama film produced, written and directed by Nick Loeb and Cathy Allyn. It serves as a dramatization of the 1973 landmark decision that was issued by the U.S. Supreme Court on the issue of the constitutionality of laws that criminalized or restricted access to abortions. The film stars a predominantly conservative ensemble cast, including Jon Voight, Stacey Dash, and Robert Davi. Loeb also stars as Bernard Nathanson, a gynecologist who co-founded the abortion rights organization NARAL and later became an advocate of the anti-abortion movement.

Cast

 * Nick Loeb as Bernard Nathanson
 * Milo Yiannopoulos as David Sopher
 * Stacey Dash as Mildred Jefferson
 * Jamie Kennedy as Lawrence Lader
 * Joey Lawrence as Robert Byrn
 * Greer Grammer as Sarah Weddington
 * Justine Wachsberger as Linda Coffee
 * Octavius Prince as Cyril Means
 * Lucy Davenport as Betty Friedan
 * Summer Joy Campbell as Norma McCorvey
 * Tomi Lahren as Sally Blackmun
 * Jon Voight as Warren E. Burger
 * Robert Davi as William J. Brennan Jr.
 * Corbin Bernsen as Harry Blackmun
 * John Schneider as Byron White
 * William Forsythe as Potter Stewart
 * Wade Williams as William Rehnquist
 * Richard Portnow as William O. Douglas
 * Jarrett Ellis Beal as Thurgood Marshall
 * Steve Guttenberg as Lewis F. Powell Jr.

Theme
According to director Nick Loeb, the film is about "the women's rights movement versus the pro-life movement. It's a social war movie where we take both sides of the argument and hopefully let the audience decide."

Production
Sources reported that Roe v. Wade had been filming since June 15, 2018, under the title 1973. The production was kept hidden from the media until a July 2018 report from The Hollywood Reporter revealed that shooting had taken place in Louisiana. The film experienced a difficult production stage, with several cast and crew members (including the original director) leaving the project within the first few days of filming due to the anti-abortion theme of Loeb and Cathy Allyn's screenplay. One crew member told The Daily Beast, "They're not keeping people in the loop with the script. When people finally receive the script, they've dropped out really fast. After people started dropping out, they said, 'OK, don't send people the scripts anymore.' Instead, they've been changing lines and scenes before they shoot." Consequently, Loeb and Allyn stepped in as directors though the pair have very little experience in film directing. Some filming locations barred the filmmakers from shooting, with the Louisiana State University explaining it was due to logistical issues and not so much about the film's subject matter.

Executive producer Alveda King, Martin Luther King Jr.'s niece, told Fox News that the film is aimed to "to educate the public" with "all facts, no fake news". Of the controversy surrounding the film, she said: "Folks that are inside the set, inside the project, are getting pressure from Hollywood and from outside. They don't want the truth to come out. And so for various reasons, investors, donors, cast [and] crew are getting rattled from all this pressure." The film's unit production manager (UPM), though, disputed King's statement in a Salon report. The UPM told the website that he withdrew from the project the day before filming began because he felt the script was laden with historical inaccuracies and promotes them as factual. For example, the script's early draft portrayed birth control activist Margaret Sanger as a KKK sympathizer who disparages black people before 15 robed women during a cross burning, a claim which Sanger biographer Jean H. Baker declared false. Baker wrote to PolitiFact, "She was far ahead of her times in terms of opposing racial segregation. She worked closely with black leaders to open birth control clinics in Harlem and elsewhere. She believed all women should have the information about birth control that rich women had, hence her lecture to the KKK women."

Variety reported that the film had received funding from the BCL Finance Group, in September 2018.

Release
The film is scheduled for a 2019 release.