‘Dexter’s Michael C. Hall Lands Lead In Jim Mickle-Helmed Indie ‘Cold In July’

EXCLUSIVE: Michael C. Hall, whose final season as Showtime’s signature serial killer Dexter starts June 30, has just landed the lead role in Cold In July. That’s the feature adaptation of the Joe Lansdale cult novel that will be directed by Jim Mickle, whose horror film We Are What We Are just played at the Cannes Film Festival. He plays the protagonist Richard Dane, who shoots and kills an armed burglar in his living room. It’s a clear-cut case of self defense to everyone but the burglar’s father, who vows Old Testament-style eye-for-an-eye justice. Here, that means son for son. The cops, the feds, and the Dixie mafia all play a part in the ensuing mayhem. The picture was introduced at Cannes by Paris-based Backup Media and Memento Films International, which are financing.

Hall most recently starred in John Krokidas’s Kill Your Darlings, playing David Kammerer, the older former professor obsessed with Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan). Sony Pictures Classics has a fall release planned for the Beat Generation drama that also stars Daniel Radcliffe as Alan Ginsberg. Hall is separately developing and exec producing American Dream Machine, a series adaptation of Matthew Specktor’s novel about a talent agent and his troubled sons – two generations of Hollywood royalty — for Showtime. Dexter showrunner Scott Buck will supervise the pilot script, which Specktor is writing. Hall recently made his directorial debut with Every Silver Lining, the second episode, season 8 of Dexter. Hall’s repped by WME, Authentic Talent And Literary and attorney Jodi Peikoff.