Published: April 17, 2023
Jamie Foxx will portray prominent Florida attorney Willie Gary in "The Burial," a courtroom drama whose star-studded cast includes Tommy Lee Jones, Alan Ruck and Bill Camp.
The Amazon Studios movie centers around a lawsuit filed by Gary, a Stuart attorney who calls himself the “Giant Killer” because of his legal victories against corporate giants such as Disney, Motorola, Anheuser-Busch and Loewen Funeral Homes.
The movie, directed by Maggie Betts, is in post-production after being filmed in New Orleans, Louisiana, from March 3 to April 28, 2022. The studio has not announced a release date yet, but you can see photos from the set.
~continued below
"The Burial" tells the story of the O’Keefe v. Loewen case.
Jones plays Jeremiah O'Keefe, whose family owned a funeral business in Jackson, Mississippi, that became the target of a multimillion-dollar Canadian corporation that was rapidly expanding into the United States.
The trial garnered attention because of Gary's attempt to bring an emotional trial to the courtroom for an otherwise run-of-the-mill contract lawsuit. Gary provided evidence of income inequality and oppression against Raymond Loewen, played by Camp, resulting in O'Keefe winning the case and a $500 million settlement.
Harrison Ford was supposed to play O'Keefe, but stepped out of the picture, according to IMBD.
The film is based on The Burial by Jonathan Harr, a 1999 article in The New Yorker.
~continued below
continued
Gary's practice — Gary, Williams, Parenti, Watson, Gary & Gillespie — is a national partnership that specializes in personal injury, wrongful death, product liability, medical malpractice, commercial litigation and class action lawsuits. The office is in the Waterside Professional Building at 117 S.E. Seminole St. in Stuart
Notable verdicts include:
Walt Disney v. All Pro Sports 2000: In 2022, The Walt Disney Co. reached a $240 million settlement with two businessmen who claimed the company stole their idea for its ESPN Wide World of Sports complex in Orlando.
SPS Technologies v. Motorola: In 2007, Motorola Inc. agreed to pay $22.9 million to Gary and other lawyers who filed a trade-secrets case that ended in a mistrial.
Anheuser-Busch v. Maris Distributing: In 2005, Anheuser-Busch agreed to pay at least $120 million to baseball great Roger Maris' family in a defamation case.
R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.: In 2014, a jury ordered the second-largest cigarette maker in the U.S. to pay $23.6 million in punitive damages in a lawsuit filed by the widow of a longtime smoker who died of lung cancer in 1996.”
"Advertisement" - The Saga of Madison Brown “A Choice of Color”
