Gus Van Sant Returns After Seven Years: First Trailer for Dead Man’s Wire Starring Bill Skarsgård
Bill Skarsgård goes from borrower to abductor in the charged first trailer for Gus Van Sant's Dead Man's Wire, the director's first feature in seven years.
Gus Van Sant is finally back on the big screen. Seven years after 'Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot,' we’ve got a new Van Sant movie, a first trailer, and a story wild enough to make your jaw do that slow drop.
The movie
'Dead Man's Wire' is a crime drama based on the 1977 Tony Kiritsis case, where a furious borrower abducted his mortgage broker and rigged a shotgun to the back of the man’s neck, then marched him through a media circus. It played out live on TV, turned the kidnapper into a kind of outlaw curiosity, and left the country arguing about justice versus spectacle. Van Sant is leaning right into that messy gray area.
Who is in it and when it opens
- Bill Skarsgard plays Tony Kiritsis
- Dacre Montgomery, Colman Domingo, Cary Elwes, Myha'la, and Al Pacino co-star
- Row K Entertainment dropped the first trailer
- Release plan: limited theaters on January 9, expanding wide January 16
Why this story sticks
The real-life setup is both horrifying and strangely theatrical: a days-long standoff, wall-to-wall media coverage, a gun literally wired to a man’s head, and a country trying to decide whether to be terrified, fascinated, or both. The title is not subtle, and neither was the original incident. If you’re into tense, talky, pressure-cooker dramas with moral ambiguity, this is squarely in your lane.
What Van Sant has been up to
He hasn’t been idle. Van Sant directed six episodes of 'Feud: Capote vs. The Swans,' the second season of Ryan Murphy’s anthology. That season tracks Truman Capote blowing up his high-society friendships by turning their gossip into thinly veiled fiction for his never-finished novel 'Answered Prayers.' He was also developing a Hulk Hogan movie centered on Hogan’s court battle with Gawker, with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon in the mix to star, but that project was scrapped earlier this year.
Skarsgard’s other gig
Skarsgard is also back as Pennywise in HBO’s 'It: Welcome to Derry,' set in the 1960s. The show’s been getting strong notices. One review put it this way:
"The scares are plentiful, and the expansion of the title town makes Welcome to Derry another stellar HBO original series. This is the best of the short list of projects inspired by Stephen King. I am looking forward to the planned additional seasons that will delve even deeper into the origin of Pennywise."
Bottom line
A new Gus Van Sant movie built on a real, unnervingly public hostage crisis, led by Bill Skarsgard, with a January rollout and a trailer that does not pull punches. I’m in. You?