Hulu has announced that Amanda Seyfried will replace Kate McKinnon as the star of The Dropout. McKinnon left the limited series last month, and it has not yet begun production. Now, Seyfried will take over the starring role of Elizabeth Holmes, according to a report by Deadline.
The Dropout is based on an ABC Radio podcast by the same title, which tells the story of the rise and fall of Holmes’ career and her company, Theranos. It is meant to be a drama — an odd choice for McKinnon, who is best known for comedies. Seyfried has a bit more of a drama background, and she will serve as a producer on the series as well. The showrunner behind the project is Elizabeth Meriwether.
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The Dropout centers around Holmes, a Stanford University dropout who founded the medical testing start-up company Theranos. The saga started in 2003, and progressed quickly, as Holmes became the world’s youngest female self-made billionaire. However, it eventually turned out that none of the groundbreaking technology she had promised was really working.
Theranos was lauded by big names in the tech industry, including Apple founder Steve Jobs. It was valued at about $9 billion, thanks to its promising strides in medical testing. It sold its blood-testing technology to Walgreens, but then came under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly defrauding investors. The case was all the more explosive because it shone a light on some of Holmes’ high-profile supporters, including Rupert Murdoch, Betsy DeVos and Henry Kissinger.
The real-life Holmes was indicted in June of 2018 on 11 counts of felony fraud. She became a household name in early 2019, when ABC aired its six-part podcast about her rise and fall. The podcast included interviews with former employees, investors and patients, as well as excerpts from the deposition tapes.
Holmes’ trial has been repeatedly rescheduled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and due to her pregnancy in real life. It is currently scheduled to begin on August 31, 2021. In the meantime, her story has been told and re-told to the public in a few different forms. HBO aired a documentary in 2019 called The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley.
The dramatization on Hulu is expected to make the whole tale even more infamous. So far, there is no word on when production will begin. Seyfried’s addition to the cast will reportedly not delay production.
