In summer 2017 producer Cathy Schulman and her Welle Entertainment company acquired the rights to Julian Guthrie’s “Alpha Girls,” a nonfiction book about the overlooked female pioneers of Silicon Valley. Now the screen adaptation of the project is moving forward. Deadline confirms TriStar Television is developing an “Alpha Girls” drama series with “The Good Lie” scribe Margaret Nagle attached to write.
Schulman will exec produce and Guthrie will serve as co-producer.
Published in spring by Crown Publishing Group, “Alpha Girls: The Women Upstarts Who Took on Silicon Valley’s Male Culture and Made the Deals of a Lifetime” focuses on four women “who became stars in the cutthroat, high-stakes, and male-dominated world of Silicon Valley, and helped finance and build some of the foremost companies of our time.” As they made a place for themselves in a notoriously toxic, misogynist world, they also contended with marriage, kids, sickness, money, betrayal, and power.
“When I read Julian’s book, my view of the power balance in Silicon Valley shifted to the extraordinary untold stories of the women who have financed and managed the biggest successes in on-line commerce,” Schulman said. “Julian Guthrie’s page-turning account of the tumult these women experienced both professionally and personally as they made their way to the top is epic. Margaret Nagle’s ability to excavate the human condition through character portrayals and TriStar’s leadership will be the perfect partnership to bring this story to life.”
“The Edge of Seventeen” and “Five Feet Apart” are among Schulman’s producing credits. As for her upcoming projects, she has optioned the rights to several women-written books via Welle. The Oscar winner is currently developing Robinne Lee’s “The Idea Of You” and Lucy Thurber’s “Transfers,” among others. Schulman is also producing an Amazon TV adaptation of Liv Constantine’s “The Last Mrs. Parrish.” She is the President Emerita of Women in Film.
Nagle won WGA Awards for writing FDR TV biopic “Warm Springs” and for her work on “Boardwalk Empire.” She created and exec produced comedic drama “Red Band Society.” It ran for one season on Fox. Next, she’s writing a Clementine Churchill biopic for Maven Pictures.
Guthrie previously penned nonfiction books “The Grace of Everyday Saints,” “The Billionaire and the Mechanic,” and “How to Make a Spaceship.” Also a journalist, she received multiple Pulitzer Prize nominations during her tenure at the San Francisco Chronicle.
