Another woman has joined “This Is Jane’s” creative team. According to Variety, “Toy Story 4” and Black List writer Stephany Folsom will pen the feature, about a pre-Roe v. Wade abortion network. As previously reported, Kimberly Peirce (“Boys Don’t Cry”) will direct and Michelle Williams is taking on the lead role and producing.
Based on Laura Kaplan’s book “The Story of Jane: The Legendary Underground Feminist Abortion Service,” “This Is Jane” follows a group of women who, under pseudonyms, form an underground abortion collective known as Jane. Williams will play the organization’s founder, who goes by Jenny.
A number of other films about abortion are in the works: Rachel Carey’s “Ask for Jane” is also about the Jane Collective, as is Elisabeth Moss-starrer “Call Jane.” And “Harlots” producers Alison Owen and Debra Hayward are developing a film about Roe v. Wade, the historic Supreme Court decision that granted all U.S. women the right to an abortion.
Folsom’s script “1969: A Space Odyssey Or: How Kubrick Learned To Stop Worrying And Land On The Moon” was selected for the 2013 Black List. It centers on a publicist who talks Stanley Kubrick into helping NASA fake the moon landing. Folsom re-wrote last year’s box office smash “Thor: Ragnarok” but was denied credit by the WGA. She also penned “Toy Story 4,” which is expected June 21, 2019.
An English-language remake of Susanne Bier’s “After the Wedding,” Broadway-set TV series “Fosse/Verdon,” and space biopic “The Challenger” are among Williams’ upcoming credits. You can catch the four-time Oscar nominee in theaters now in anti-hero blockbuster “Venom.”
Peirce most recently directed episodes of “Six” and “Dear White People” and appeared in “Half the Picture,” a doc about gender disparity among directors. She’s also helmed features “Carrie” and “Stop-Loss.”