Nearly four decades after sharing the screen in Clean and Sober, Michael Keaton and Morgan Freeman are back together. Keaton will direct and star opposite Freeman in Rode to Ruin, an original Western thriller written by R. Dean McCreary.
Keaton plays retired Marshal Henry Tillman, a man who spent forty years searching for his wife’s killer. The cold trail finally heats up, leading him to an aging outlaw named Joseph Mulberry, played by Freeman, who is losing his memory and harboring a buried truth that neither man may survive.
“When I first read it, I thought, this is really good and there’s more here for Morgan and me to mine together,” Keaton said. “Just as The Shawshank Redemption isn’t simply a prison movie, Rode to Ruin isn’t simply a Western. It’s a story with a lot of layers that happens to unfold in the West.”
Freeman is no stranger to the Old West, having previously starred in Unforgiven, and is currently co-starring in Taylor Sheridan’s Lioness. Keaton previously directed Knox Goes Away and The Merry Gentleman.
“Rode to Ruin is a deeply human story about forgiveness, revenge, redemption and the choices people make when time is running out,” said producer Lori McCreary. “The prospect of Michael directing and sharing the screen with Morgan is everything we hoped this film could become.”
The film is produced by Lori McCreary, Keaton, Kelly Mendelsohn and Gary Lucchesi for Revelations Entertainment and George and Leona Productions.