Tina Fey is helping to produce a movie about the May 4th shooting that occurred on campus. She will be working with director Jay Roach who directed Austin Powers and Meet the Fockers. Fey will also be producing the movie alongside her Kent State alum husband, Jeff Richmond. Tina and her husband brought the movie idea to Jay who she worked with on her recent movie Sisters.
The movie will be a drama based on Howard Means book, 67 Shots: Kent State and the End of American Innocence. The book and film take a look into what led up to the shooting of four protestors.
Incase you are unfamiliar with the tragedy, here is some backstory.
On May 4, 1970 a shooting occurred on Kent’s campus where 29 guardsmen from the Ohio National Guard fired 67 shots into a crowd of students protesting the war in Vietnam. They killed four students while injuring nine. This movie occurs at a time in America when protests are common in the NFL and with organizations such as Black Lives Matters.
Roach was quoted in a recent article with Deadline speaking about the movie saying “It is a cautionary tale. Kent State was a big event for me, and I remember arguing with my dad about it when I was about 13. There was a prevailing movement in the country- they measured it with polls- where the vast majority of Americans blamed the students for what happened. Maybe 60% in Gallup-type polls felt the students brought it on themselves. We have footage of people on the streets saying ‘I wish they’d shot them all,’ ‘I wish they had machine guns.”
It’s not been confirmed yet whether the movie will be shot on Kent States campus.