Alveda King's ‘Roe v. Wade’ movie finishes production; launching awareness campaign

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Friday, August 09, 2019

A film about the U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade being overseen by notable pro-life activist Alveda King has finished production and is launching an “awareness campaign” in advance of its theatrical release.

The niece of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who's an executive producer of the film,  sent an email to supporters on Tuesday, urging them to “chip in” and help spread awareness about the film. 

“We finished production of our 'Roe v. Wade' movie exposé a few weeks ago thanks to faithful supporters like you. Liberal Hollywood studios turned their back on us to keep the truth about Roe v. Wade buried but our supporters came to the rescue,” King said in the email.

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“I am hoping you will help us now. We are short of the goal we need to meet to fund the media awareness campaign needed to fill theater seats.”

King went on to write in the email that when it came to their “theater launch,” they have “not finalized location & date as we need to launch our awareness campaign first.”

“The timing has never been more favorable to change hearts and minds to end the ongoing slaughter of precious, innocent pre-born babies,” she added.

The film was directed by Cathy Allyn and Nick Loeb, and features actors Jon Voight and Stacey Dash.

The project faced many obstacles throughout the course of securing set locations,  filming, and promotion. In January 2018, Facebook blocked paid ads that were meant to help raise funds for the production by promoting the movie's Indiegogo crowdfunding account.

Facebook later lifted the ban, telling The Christian Post in an emailed statement in January of last year that the ads had been censored by mistake.

For its part, the crowdfunding account had a goal of raising $2 million for the production, but only ended up raising around $135,000 by the time the campaign closed.

Production also had its challenges, as it was reported in the summer of 2018 that at least three actors had quit the production, allegedly after finding out that the film would have a pro-life perspective.

“We had to replace three local actors, including one who was to play Norma McCorvey, even after she begged for the role,” Loeb, co-director of the film, told The Hollywood Reporter.

They also lost support from a location manager for their scenes in Washington, D.C., and a synagogue based in New Orleans, Louisiana.

“Once they found out what the film was about, they locked us out. We had to call the police so that the extras and caterers could retrieve their possessions,” Loeb said, recounting his experience with the synagogue.

The production was also accused of deceiving crew members into working on a film that had a pro-life message. Supporters of this accusation said proof of their claim was that “Roe v. Wade” was originally titled “1973.”

In July of last year, King dismissed these claims, which also included the accusation that the crew only saw portions of the script and were unaware of the pro-life stance of the production.

"We were challenged with our working title '1973.' The title of the film is 'Roe v. Wade.' There was no deception there. I made a trailer early on talking about our film and what we would be doing as executive producer," said King told CBN News last July.

"I have been in what is called the entertainment industry — look for me on IMDB — for many, many, many years, 40 plus years. On every project, wherever I've worked, there's always been a little bit of discourse, controversy and that's the nature of it."