Billy Zane (Titanic) has signed on to the already strong cast of Duane Edward’s indie comedy Supreme Ruler, planned to shoot here this fall.
A Chicago native and current resident, Zane starred in the Lyric Opera’s spring run of The Sound of Music.
Ron Livingston (Boardwalk Empire) stars in Supreme Ruler as a striver battling his rival Vincent D’Onofrio (Jurassic World) for the top position in their small town’s Buffalo Lodge fraternal organization.
Zane will play Livingston’s boss.
Also attached are Marcia Gay Harden (Trophy Wife), Anthony Anderson (Guys with Kids), Brian Geraghty (Boardwalk Empire), Natalie Zea (Justified), and Peyton List (Mad Men).
Except for Zane and List, the entire cast is represented by United Talent Agency, which represents Edwards.
A senior VP at IT staffing company, Kforce Inc., Edwards acted in 1980s TV series Who’s the Boss?, Murder She Wrote, and Santa Barbara, and made a series of well-received shorts in the early 2000s.
Screenplay by Frederick Mensch of Moviebytes.
Edwards was one of ten finalists on the 2005 Bravo season of Project Greenlight, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s TV series whose winner was awarded a $1 million feature film budget.
Project Greenlight generated “a lot of good heat” for Edwards, he says. “I was able to get in front of studios, and they’d ask ‘what do you want to direct,’ but no one would slide something across the desk and say ‘this is perfect for you.’”
Not a writer himself, Edwards spent the next few years searching for the script that could be the perfect vehicle for his feature directorial debut.
He advertised for scripts on the screenwriting site M
ovieBytes.com, but didn’t find anything that seemed right. Eventually Frederick Mensch (Nightingale), who operates MovieBytes as well as the website of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, showed Edwards an early draft of Supreme Ruler.
Edwards gravitated to the dark humor, and to a quirkiness reminiscent of Steve Conrad. Edwards worked with Mensch to add weight to the material, for instance making Livingston’s wife, played by Zea, a cancer survivor.
Edwards spent the next few years putting together cast and financing. The under-$625,000 budget is now 80% funded, entirely through local private investors.
Stephen L’Heureux (Sin City: A Dame to Kill For) is producing Supreme Ruler through his company Solipsist Film.
“I’m a businessman, I’ve had a great career,” Edwards says. “I want to make that transition. I’ve learned a lot from him about how to approach this business.”
