BALDWYN, Miss. | The wait is nearly over for those who have been anxiously awaiting the public release of Six Shooter Studios’ “Mysterious Circumstance: The Death of Meriwether Lewis.”
The film, written and directed by Baldwyn’s Clark Richey and shot in Tishomingo County in the woods at Bay Springs, will see its public release in several theaters across the country.
The U.S. theatrical premiere of the film will be held on Thursday, Sept. 8, at 7:30 p.m. in a one-night only performance in the historic, 1,200-seat Tampa Theatre in Tampa, Fla. Tickets are on sale now for this premiere event at tampatheatre.org.
The film also will screen on September 8 at a 7 p.m. Red-Carpet Event at Celebrity Theatre in Baton Rouge, La., which will mark the Louisiana premiere of the film.
The official national release of the movie will commence on Friday, September 9, with premiere events being held at The Capri Theatre in Jackson, Miss., and the Athens Movie Palace in Athens, Tenn. Additionally, the movie will open on the 9th in North Hollywood’s Laemmle NoHo 7; at Celebrity Theatres in Broussard and Ruston, La.; in Tennessee at Memphis-area Malco Theatres and The Capri Theatre in Shelbyville; and in Washington state at Fairchild Cinemas in Pasco and Richland.
Closer to home
Historic Mississippi theaters – The Cine in New Albany and The Coliseum in Corinth – will screen the film on opening weekend, complete with filmmaker Q&A events. These two high-capacity venues will exhibit the movie closest to where it was filmed in March of 2021.
The Franklin Theatre in Franklin, Tenn., and the Temple Theater in Meridian, Miss., will also show the film in its first week of release, one-night only events on Sunday, September 11, and Thursday, September 15, respectively.
About the film
The film is directed and written by Six Shooter Studios CEO Clark Richey. Executive producers include Richey, John Schneider (John Schneider Studios), Alicia Allain Schneider (Maven Entertainment), and Michael Mosca (Starling Road Productions). The film was produced by Six Shooter Studios GM Amye Gousset, Robbie Fisher (Fisher Productions, LLC), Morgan Cutturini, and P.J. Leonard.
A story of the allegedly unresolved 1809 demise of a national hero, Mysterious Circumstance sheds light on Lewis’s death by gunshot on the Natchez Trace, an isolated frontier road connecting Nashville, Tennessee, to Natchez, Mississippi. Did the Governor of the Louisiana Territory commit suicide as history reports or was his end far more sinister?
In the film, entangled versions of Lewis’s tragic ending at a remote Tennessee inn are imagined by his friend Alexander Wilson (Billy Slaughter, Mindhunter) during a tense encounter with Priscilla Grinder (Gousset, The Card Counter), the only witness to Lewis’s final night alive. The historical thriller brings together an award-winning cast and crew that includes Schneider (The Dukes of Hazzard), Sonny Marinelli (Entourage) and Evan Williams (Versailles) as Lewis.
Mysterious Circumstance will be theatrically distributed in Canada by Cinemas Guzzo (Montreal), with an opening weekend set for September 16, and then downstream in the U.S. and Canada and the rest of the world by Vision Films Inc. (Marina Del Rey, California).
Hudson Hickman, Emmy-winning Film & Television Producer, was quite impressed with the film.
“Director-writer Clark Richey has created a well-executed exploration of a 200-year-old cold-case – the mysterious death of 19th Century American explorer, Meriwether Lewis. Unfolding from several different viewpoints, the film leaves the viewer to decide for themselves which account of Lewis’ death is true. Richey smartly uses his limited budget to create a film with noteworthy production values and distinctive performances. Congratulations to Mr. Richey.”
The film and its cast and crew have received numerous awards, including being named the Best Feature Film from the Julien Dubuque International Film Festival and winner of the Best Feature Audience Award at the Gasparilla International Film Festival.
