Hulu intends to produce an eight-episode series about the wrongful prosecution and incarceration of femme fatale Amanda Knox, who will be played by Margaret Qualley.
The problem is that Qualley is too old for the part. Knox was 20 when Italian authorities in Perugia became convinced that she might have murdered her roommate, Meredith Kercher, in late ’07 — Knox was a foxy young flower back then, freshly bloomed. The attractive Qualley is 30 and looks it — she might have passed for 20 five years ago, but she’s no spring chicken now.
On top of which the Knox story has been thoroughly mined and explored over the last 13 years or so. How many times can average Joe and Janes be expected to show interest?
In 2011 saw the release of a negligible Lifetime TV movie, Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy. Two years later came “Waiting To Be Heard”, a Knox-authored memoir. In 2014 Michael Winterbottom‘s not-so-hot Face Of An Angel opened. In 2016 a Netflix documentary, Amanda Knox, appeared. And then, of course, came Tom McCarthy‘s Stillwater (’21), which is largely based on the Knox saga.
The Hulu series is basically about Knox and husband Chris Robinson, who felt exploited by Stillwater, wanting to make some dough. They’re exec producing along with Qualley, Warren Littlefield, Lisa Harrison, Ann Johnson and Graham Littlefield. Monica Lewinsky is also exec producing.
“Knox vs. McCarthy Again,” posted on 8.8.21:
In an 8.6 HE riff titled “McCarthy Coolly Dismisses Knox Beef,” I linked to Janelle Riley’s 8.4 Variety interview with Stillwater director-cowriter Tom McCarthy.
McCarthy responded to the gist of Amanda Knox‘s complaint about Stillwater being fundamentally based on her 2008 murder conviction and subsequent exoneration, and her not having been consulted prior to filming. McCarthy also mentioned that her statements were somewhat undermined by the fact that she hadn’t yet seen the film.
Yesterday Knox posted a series of tweets about the McCarthy interview [excerpts after the jump], and made some reasonable points. However, she also tweeted the following:
HE response to friendo: “Seeing Stillwater would not be an ‘ideal date night’ and that’s why she still hasn’t seen it yet? But she would be amenable to seeing it, she said earlier, if Focus would invite her to a screening. The date night remark was playful, but she invites skepticism.”
Friendo to HE: “You have to admit that it’s hilarious when, in being asked at the outset in the new interview what his inspiration for the movie was, McCarthy says, ‘One inspiration was a relative of mine who had a fractious relationship with her father. I asked if she minded talking to me about it.” This after previously not being afraid to openly and preemptively acknowledge the Knox case was a springboard, before he had to worry [that Knox might be] endangering his Oscar campaign. Now Knox is incidental, he claims, while asserting that he was inspired by a friend. That kind of covering-one’s-ass (publicly and badly) is the hallmark of a really insubstantial person, or a scaredy-cat on the run.”
Posted on 2.6.14: Based on a non-fiction work by Barbie Latza Nadeau, The Face of An Angel is Michael Winterbottom‘s roman a clef about the Amanda Knox murder trial. A filmmaker (Daniel Bruhl) is hired to make a movie about a high-profile murder case involving an American female exchange student living in Italy who’s been convicted of killing her roommate and her boyfriend, etc. Kate Beckinsale costars as a reporter who’s also working the same story (i.e., presumably based on Nadeau). Pic is currently shopping for a distributor.
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