Screenwriter Dishes RI-Based “Missing William”

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Monday, November 01, 2010

GoLocalProv Lifestyle Editor Andrea E. McHugh

Pawtucket native Daniel McKinnon has been writing screenplays for more than a dozen years, but tomorrow, he’ll enjoy hearing three sweet, long-anticipated words: “that’s a wrap.” McKinnon’s film, Missing William, has been shooting on location across Rhode Island at scenic locales including Federal Hill, Portsmouth and Cranston, sites that he said has charmed the film’s stars Brandon Routh (Superman, Chuck, Zack and Miri Make a Porno), Routh’s real-life wife, actress Courtney Ford (Dexter, The Vampire Diaries), Spencer Grammer (Greek, As The World Turns) and Reid Scott (The Big C, My Boys). “They love it here,” said McKinnon in an exclusive interview with GoLocalProv.com. “Everyone keeps talking about how beautiful Rhode Island is, and it’s great to hear when you’re the guy that brought them all here.”

Old Love and New Love Collide

The film, which McKinnon describes as an untraditional love story/drama, follows Abby, a thirty-something artist (Ford) living in Rhode Island and caring for her husband William (Scott) after he’s been tragically injured in a bar fight. As she attempts to coax him back to health, James (Routh), her childhood sweetheart

and unrequited love, returns and strives to cajole her back into living life again herself. Director Kenn Macre, best known as the million-dollar winner of the Australian iteration of the Matt Damon/Ben Affleck creation Project Greenlight, has led the four-week shoot, while Rhode Island’s own John Santilli and Kendra Robichaud (both of Loosies and Inkubus) are producing the film.

A trademark attorney at athletic shoe company New Balance by day, McKinnon’s no stranger to the celluloid struggles of Hollywood, having had two of his screenplays optioned in years past. Missing William, however, is his first to come to fruition, and it almost didn’t happen in his home state. “The movie was originally slated to film in Ontario, then Portland, but I was able to talk to some people convince them that when you’re shooting a movie that is set in Rhode Island, it should be filmed in Rhode Island,” he said. The shooting wraps this week and Missing William is slated for release in 2011.
 

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