More Swank for Fox Searchlight: Betty Ann Waters is Oscar Bait for 2011?

Hilary Swank, the two-time Oscar winning actress got pummeled last year for her work on Amelia. The Fox Searchlight titled tanked at the B.O., but an important lesson was learnt – the “beat the system type” characters can be positioned for Oscar – I’m citing The Blind Side and Crazy Heart, another Searchlight film that was thrown into the hat late, and managed to grab a pair of acting noms as an example. Something tells me that today’s deal for Betty Ann Waters – a David vs. Goliath biopic will ensure that the indie division remains relevant/profitable/award-proof in market.

Directed Tony Goldwyn, an actor who moonlighted as a director and has pretty much alternated between professions, this true story is scripted by Pamela Gray with a rewrite from Richard LaGravenese, and is based on the true story of a high school dropout (Swank) who represented her brother in a murder case. It tells how Waters, an unemployed single mother of two, saw her brother begin serving a life sentence in 1983 for murder and robbery. Convinced that he was innocent, she spent the next 12 years taking the steps to earn a law degree, and in 1995 she began focusing on her brother’s case. Challenging the conviction with DNA evidence, she proved her brother’s innocence, and in March 2001, Kenneth Waters walked out a free man. Sam Rockwell plays the brother.