‘wire’ Actor to Direct Movie on Globe’s Church Expose, by Doug Most, Boston Globe, October 19, 2012

‘wire’ Actor to Direct Movie on Globe’s Church Expose

By Doug Most
Boston Globe
October 19, 2012

http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/2012/10/18/movie-catholic-church-molestation-scandal-gets-director-screenwriter/Tq7T9ULtGvTYJ37hRnVvSL/story.html

Actor and director Tom McCarthy (right), who played the role of a journalist in the final season of HBO’s “The Wire,” has been signed on to direct a movie based on The Boston Globe’s reporting of the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal.

Actor and director Tom McCarthy (right), who played the role of a journalist in the final season of HBO’s “The Wire,” has been signed on to direct a movie based on The Boston Globe’s reporting of the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal.

The story about how the Catholic Church’s long cover-up of child molestation unfolded and came to light is one step closer to becoming a movie. The production company Anonymous Content, which plans to make the movie based on the stories of the Boston Globe journalists who uncovered the scandal, has hired a director and screenwriter to keep the project moving.

Tom McCarthy, an actor and director, and also a Boston College grad, who co-starred in “The Wire” as an ethically-challenged journalist, and has directed “The Station Agent,” “Win, Win” and “The Visitor” among other projects, is on board for the untitled project, along with screenwriter Josh Singer.

“This is a story that feels like it has to be told,” McCarthy, who grew up in a large Irish Catholic family in New Jersey, told us Thursday.

He said he was especially drawn to the story because of his connection to BC, where he came to see the influence of the Catholic Church.

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“It’s such a great reminder of how essential investigative journalism is today,” said McCarthy.

The project, which has been described as being in the mold of “All the President’s Men,” focuses on the efforts of the Globe reporters, including Spotlight Team reporters Michael Rezendes, Sacha Pfeiffer and Matt Carroll, along with project editor Walter “Robby” Robinson, Spotlight Team Editor Ben Bradlee Jr. and Globe Editor Marty Baron. The Globe team eventually discovered that Cardinal Bernard Law, America’s Senior Catholic Prelate, had hidden years of serial abuse by moving guilty priests from one parish to another where the priests often abused again. Law resigned from a Vatican post in 2011.

The team’s articles won them the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service and set off a tidal wave of similar allegations and revelations around the world.