With Bill Skarsgård, Colman Domingo and Al Pacino, Gus Van Sant is fielding an all-star team for Friday’s true-crime hostage drama “Dead Man’s Wire.”

Van Sant, a filmmaker fond of outsiders – “Drugstore Cowboy,” “To Die For,” “My Own Private Idaho” and “Milk” – has perhaps the ultimate outsider in fed-up, angry and violent Tony Kiritsis (played by Bill Skarsgård) who in 1977 Indianapolis took mortgage company executive Dick Hall (played by Dacre Montgomery) hostage.

As the title declares, Tony held Hall with a “dead man’s wire.” While the sawed-off muzzle of his 12-gauge shotgun was pointed at the back of Hall’s head, one wire end was connected to the trigger, the other was wrapped around Hall’s neck.

If a cop tried to shoot Kiritsis, or if Hall tried to escape, the gun would go off and kill him.

In what became a nationally broadcast stand-off, Kiritsis negotiated with police – and a radio deejay (Colman Domingo) whom he trusted.

A 2018 comprehensive documentary about these events led to Austin Kolodney’s decision to write a screenplay that Van Sant would direct.

“I was actively looking for something that would be a movie,” he said in a virtual interview with the filmmaker. “When I heard about Tony, I went down this rabbit hole with some podcasts, one YouTube video that is a 5-minute summation of this archival footage. There’s a highlight reel of Tony slipping on the ice! Cracking jokes at the cops and laughing at them.

“Like, getting them to laugh with him! And then asking for water. And having to hold the gun and drink it like a baby bird.

“For some reason, that crystallized the movie for me. I’m, How has this NOT been made into a movie!?

“So I started by getting in touch with Alan Berry and Mark Enochs, who are the documentarians and foremost historians on the subject matter.

“Because I wasn’t in Indianapolis in 1977. I wasn’t even alive then. So it was helpful to consult their records. They had this great 16-gig file that I’ve shared with Gus, the production designer and others. A really rich source of newspaper clippings, photographs, police reports. All the 911 calls. A real buffet to pick these nuggets from that.

“Then it was peppering in my own voice. Trying to find empathy for both of these men that are at either end of the shotgun.”

For Van Sant, most vital thing was getting Skarsgård. “I had tried to get Bill in another film that was canceled. Then he seemed to be game.

“Partly, maybe, because I worked with his dad Stellan in ‘Good Will Hunting.’ He had actually come to the set! When he was, like, 7 years old. There’s a picture I have of him and the family, the big family, that was visiting Stellan.”

Gus Van Sant arrives at the AFI Fest premiere of “Dead Man’s Wire” in October at TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)