Could a movie about the reporting that led to disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein's downfall be a future Oscar contender?
Universal Pictures is developing a film about how reporters Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor broke their 2017 story in The New York Times revealing sexual misconduct allegations against Weinstein, Deadline and Variety report.
Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan are reportedly in negotiations to star as Twohey and Kantor, and the film will be based on the reporters' book She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement. Maria Schrader, who helmed the Netflix miniseries Unorthodox, is set to direct.
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The Times' report about Weinstein, published on Oct. 5, 2017, found that "after being confronted with allegations including sexual harassment and unwanted physical contact," Weinstein had "reached at least eight settlements with women." The report was followed by another bombshell investigation in The New Yorker, and it triggered a wave of additional allegations against the producer. Weinstein was subsequently fired from The Weinstein Company and in 2020 was convicted of rape and sentenced to more than 20 years in prison.
Weinstein himself won't be the main focus of the film, Deadline writes. Instead, She Said will center around the "all-women team of journalists who persevered through threats of litigation and intimidation, to break a game-changing story, told in a procedural manner like Spotlight and All the President's Men," the report says. The former film won the Academy Award for Best Picture, while the latter was nominated, and Mulligan was just recently up for Best Actress at the 2021 Oscars for her role in Promising Young Woman.
She Said doesn't have a release date set, but it will reportedly begin production this summer.
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