White Boy Rick Begins Production

Matthew McConaughey and newcomer Richie Merritt headline Yann Demange’s White Boy Rick Principal photography has officially begun on the Studio 8 drama, White Boy Rick, which is being produced by LBI Entertainment and Protozoa Pictures. Based on true events, White Boy Rick is set in 1980s Detroit at the height of the crack epidemic and the War on Drugs, and tells the moving story of a blue-collar father and his teenage son, who became an undercover informant and later a drug dealer, before he was dropped by his handlers and sentenced to life in prison. White Boy Rick stars newcomer Richie Merritt as Ricky Wershe Jr., and Academy Award winner Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club, The Dark Tower) as Ricky’s father, Richard Wershe Sr. 15-year-old Richie Merritt was discovered in Baltimore during an extensive nationwide talent search.