Filming has begun on location in Atlanta, Georgia on Boy Erased, the coming-of-age and coming-out drama from writer/director Joel Edgerton based on Boy Erased: A Memoir of Identity, Faith, and Family by Garrard Conley. Joe Alwyn (The Sense of an Ending, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk) joins the cast along with previously-announced Academy Award nominee Lucas Hedges (Manchester by the Sea), Academy Award winners Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman, Joel Edgerton¸ Emmy and Tony Award winner Cherry Jones, Grammy Award winner Michael “Flea” Balzary from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Xavier Dolan, singer/songwriter and YouTube personality Troye Sivan, Emily Hinkler, Jesse LaTourette, David Joseph Craig, Théodore Pellerin, Madelyn Cline, and Britton Sear.
The movie will be produced by Anonymous Content and will open in theaters in 2018. Focus Features holds worldwide rights and will release Boy Erased in the US and Universal Pictures International (UPI) will distribute the film internationally. Focus chairman Peter Kujawski made the announcement today.
The film will tell the story of Jared (Hedges), the son of a Baptist pastor in a small American town, who is outed to his parents (Kidman and Crowe) at age 19. Jared is faced with an ultimatum: attend a gay conversion therapy program – or be permanently exiled and shunned by his family, friends, and faith. Boy Erased is the true story of one young man’s struggle to find himself while being forced to question every aspect of his identity.
Boy Erased is being produced by Edgerton and Anonymous Content’s Kerry Kohansky-Roberts and Steve Golin, an Academy Award-winning producer of Best Picture Oscar winner Spotlight. Executive producing the film are Rebecca Yeldham, Ann Ruark, and Anonymous Content’s Kim Hodgert and Tony Lipp. Josh McLaughlin, Focus president of production, will supervise the project for the company.
Conley’s memoir was first published last year by Penguin Random House, and was issued earlier this year in paperback. Edgerton has written the screenplay adaptation; Boy Erased will be his second feature as director following the sleeper hit The Gift (also produced by Yeldham), which earned him a Directors Guild of America Award nomination. He was recently a Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice Award nominee for his performance in Focus’ Loving.
(Photo Credit: Getty Images)
