Dead Man’s Wire, out in theaters Jan. 9, is inspired by a real-life hostage crisis that took place in Indianapolis in 1977, when a businessman was held captive for three days and paraded by his captor through the streets with a wire around his neck attached to a shotgun.
Tony Kiritsis, portrayed in the film by Bill Skarsgård, kidnapped Richard Hall (Dacre Montgomery), an executive at Meridian Mortgage Co., a company that had loaned Kiritsis money three years prior to buy land and set up a shopping center. Kiritsis claimed that Meridian steered retailers away from the property, forcing him to default on the loan.
Facing foreclosure, he took Hall hostage on Feb. 8, 1977, as revenge, tying a wire around his neck attached to a shotgun that could go off if Hall made a sudden movement—hence the movie’s title Dead Man’s Wire. The movie traces Hall’s kidnapping and the aftermath and how Kiritsis captivated Indianapolis over the three days as hemarched Hall to the Indiana Statehouse and then hijacked a police car to drive Hall to his apartment, which he claimed was filled with explosives…