May 27, 2009–Al Pacino will star in HBO’s film about right-to-die champion Dr. Jack Kevorkian, which Barry Levinson will direct.
The film centers on Kevorkian’s infamous “Mercy Machine,” his first assisted suicide in the early 1990s and the ensuing media frenzy. Kevorkian was convicted of second-degree murder in 1999 as a result of his involvement in an assisted suicide that was videotaped and later shown on TV. He was released from prison in 2007.
The script was penned by Adam Mazer. Levinson, Steve Lee Jones, Lydia Dean Pilcher, and Gelnn Rigberg will exec- produce. It's unclear if Kevorkian, who last year mounted an unsuccessful bid for Congress in Michigan, will be involved in the production.
Jones has been interested in a Kevorkian biopic after he received the manuscript for a book about Kevorkian, “Between the Dying and the Dead,” written by Harry Wylie and Neal Nicol, friends and associates of the activist.
