Television

Kate McKinnon to Play Elizabeth Holmes in Hulu Limited Series ‘The Dropout’

Hulu is eyeing a series order for “The Dropout,” a limited series about Elizabeth Holmes, with Kate McKinnon set to play the disgraced tech whiz, Variety has learned.

The prospective show, based on the ABC Radio and ABC News podcast about Holmes, would hail from Fox Searchlight TV, with McKinnon also on board as an executive producer.

The title refers to the fact Holmes dropped out of Stanford to found Theranos, a company which invented the Edison machine, a revolutionary diagnostic tool that promised to give patients a cheap way to test their blood for 200 diseases at their local drug store with just a finger-prick.

However, the machine did not work as Holmes claimed, and her lies allowed her to reap a fortune from investors, and even appear on the front cover of Fortune magazine. Wealthy investors who fell for Holmes’ scheme and poured money into the company include Betsy DuVos and Rupert Murdock.

Holmes’ scam was so successful, that Theranos was at one time valued at nine-billion dollars, making her one of the richest women in the world. She was indicted by a federal jury in 2018, along with the former Theranos chief operating officer, on nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Rebecca Jarvis, who hosted the podcast, will executive produce the series, and podcast producers Victoria Thompson and Taylor Dunn will also produce.

Hulu declined to comment on the prospective show.

McKinnon is repped by UTA and Artists First, and Rebecca Jarvis is repped by UTA and Ziffren Brittenham.

Content on Holmes has been in high-demand, with HBO releasing “The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley,” an Alex Gibney documentary about her in March.

A film version of “Bad Blood,” the book by Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou which chronicles Theranos’ eventual demise, is in development, with Jennifer Lawrence set to star as Holmes, “Vice” director Adam McKay pegged to direct, and “The Shape of Water” co-writer Vanessa Taylor penning the script.

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