Vanessa Taylor has lined up yet another high-profile project. The Oscar-nominated “Shape of Water” co-writer is set to pen Legendary Entertainment’s “Bad Blood,” a pic about Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of scandal-ridden blood testing company Theranos. Jennifer Lawrence is set to star in the Silicon Valley story, with Adam McKay (“The Big Short”) directing. Variety broke the news.
“The film casts a skeptical eye on how innovative companies gain astronomical valuations, and sometimes prove too good to be true,” the source hints. “Wall Street fell in love with the potential behind a potentially disruptive company, with Theranos heralded as a revolutionary service that could test blood with only a pinprick instead of the traditional method of drawing blood by injection. That potential left Theranos with a $9 billion valuation as recently as two years ago. The company has since come under investigation over claims of inaccurate testing and Holmes’ own worth — at one point valued at $4.5 billion for her 50 percent stake — plummeted along with the worth of the company.”
And then things got even worse for Holmes. “The Securities and Exchange Commission sued Holmes and Theranos, accusing them of fraudulently raising more than $700 million from investors through false or exaggerated claims. In exchange for settling the charges, Holmes agreed to pay a $500,000 fine, return 18.9 million shares, relinquish her voting control of Theranos, and be barred from serving as an officer or director of a public company for 10 years.”
Lawrence is serving as a producer on the project, which is based on John Carreyrou’s newly released book “Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in Silicon Valley.”
Taylor has a number of buzzy films in the works. She’s penning an adaptation of J.D. Vance’s 2016 best-seller “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis,” an exploration of the white underclass, race, and privilege in the United States. She also co-wrote Disney’s live-action take on “Aladdin,” set to bow May 24, 2019.
“When I worked in television, where writers are also producers, gender didn’t feel hugely relevant to me,” Taylor has said. “When asked, I told people I didn’t feel personally affected by sexism in Hollywood. (I think partly what I meant was that as the exception to the rule – the woman in the room – the problem didn’t seem as real to me.) When I crossed over to the film side, it all felt different. In the beginning, I only got offered ‘chick lit’ adaptations. All the books had a department store in the title. For the first time I felt the hovering presence of a glass ceiling.”
“Divergent,” “Hope Springs,” “Game of Thrones,” “Alias,” and “Everwood” are among Taylor’s previous credits.
