“The Trials of Nina McCall” hasn’t been published yet, but the upcoming book has already found a fan in Oscar-winning producer Cathy Schulman. The Hollywood Reporter writes that Schulman’s Welle Entertainment has snagged the film rights to Scott W. Stern’s non-fiction account of “one of the largest mass quarantines in U.S. history and the women who fought against it.”
Set for publication in the spring of 2018, the book explores the American Plan, “a program that empowered local law enforcement and health officials to incarcerate and ‘treat’ tens of thousands of girls and young women suspected of carrying STIs (sexually transmitted infections) and spreading them among American soldiers throughout both World Wars, all without due process,” THR summarizes. The film adaptation will center on a heroic young woman “who was arrested and imprisoned under the plan but who refused to stay silent and decided to fight back.”
Schulman, who has been President of Women in Film since 2011, launched Welle Entertainment in February of this year. Another project on their slate is a comedy about empty-nesters directed by Cindy Chupack, whose writing credits include “Divorce,” “Better Things,” and “Sex and the City.” The film will mark Emmy winner Chupack’s feature directorial debut.
Box office hit “Bad Moms” and Kelly Fremon Craig’s critically acclaimed Hailee Steinfeld-starrer “The Edge of Seventeen” are among Schulman’s recent credits. She won an Oscar in 2006 for producing Best Picture winner “Crash.”
