Kate McKinnon opts out of The Dropout
Saturday Night Live star Kate McKinnon has stepped away from Hulu’s The Dropout. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the SNL star was set to star and executive produce the limited series as one of two projects she has lined up after SNL wraps up this season.
The Dropout is yet another podcast to series project, based on an ABC News podcast that followed the story of Holmes and her quest to fund a machine that didn’t work.
In theory, if Holmes’ Theranos blood test worked it would have revolutionized modern medicine, and she seemed to know it. What made her story particularly interesting was that she either denied that it didn’t work or didn’t want to hear that it didn’t work…because her testing system didn’t work and yet she kept touting it.
McKinnon was the ideal person to bring Holmes’ story to life. Anyone who has seen the HBO documentary The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley knows about Holmes and her intense gaze and modified voice, which were a huge part of what made her story so interesting as she spoke with such conviction about something that never worked. She’s like a caricature of herself in a way, and would have been a prime role for McKinnon.
The Dropout to move forward on Hulu without Kate McKinnon
It’s unclear why McKinnon stepped away from starring and executive producing The Dropout, but Hulu made it clear during an investor call that the limited series is movie forward once they identify a new lead.
True crime podcasts have become all the rage recently, carving out a niche for themselves within an audience used to tuning into similarly themed shows on television. With so many cases that feature twists and turns and head-scratching moments that defy logic, it makes these podcasts excellent source material for limited series that bring the action to life.
Netflix has seen great success peddling new true crime miniseries to fans, recently dropping new miniseries about the Nightstalker and the mysterious disappearance of Elisa Lam at the Hotel Cecil.
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Stay tuned as Hulu does some reshuffling for The Dropout, which was set to begin production in May.