Amanda Seyfried to star as Elizabeth Holmes in miniseries 'The Dropout'

The Dropout's cast has a new lead actor to take on the role as Elizabeth Holmes, Amanda Seyfried. She will be replacing SNL's Kate McKinnon who was supposed to star in the lead role. McKinnon announced her exit from the show in February. 

The Dropout will be based on a podcast produced by ABC News and ABC Radio of the same name, according to Deadline. The Elizabeth Holmes episode will showcase the rise of Holmes' technology which promised to get better health results using little amounts of blood. Her idea and Theranos earned her billions of dollars but later turned out to be a major scam.     

Amanda Seyfried will also be a producer on the show. The miniseries' executive producers' panel includes Elizabeth Meriwether, Rebecca Jarvis, Liz Heldens, Katherine Pope, Rebecca Jarvis, Taylor Dunn and Victoria Thompson. Meriwether is also the showrunner of the miniseries.  

The plot of The Dropout

Elizabeth Holmes had made it to the headlines in 2014 for inventing a way to gain information from a small amount of blood. She claimed that she got the idea as she had a fear of needles. She introduced Theranos, her company, in 2014 after having raised millions of dollars successfully. She even managed to get former secretary of state George Shultz on the panel of board of directors for her company. 

Her success rose when she partnered with Walgreens to start the collection of blood samples in the store. She was featured in many celebrated magazines including being put at #110 on the Forbes 400 list in 2014. Her net worth was $9 billion at the time. She had more than 80 patents internationally. 

Her scam was leaked when The Wall Street journalist John Carreyrou carried out a probe against Theranos' health technology. Carreyrou had received the idea after an expert expressed suspicions against the technology provided by Theranos. He was, then, able to gain information through the company's ex-employees and whistleblowers. He went on to publish several articles from October 2015 exposing Holmes' scam. Carreyrou then published a book called Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup.    

Amanda Seyfried was recently nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for her role in Mank. She is expecting the release of her film A Mouthful of Air directed by Amy Koppelman and a Netflix thriller. 

(Promo Image Courtesy: Elizabeth Holmes and Amanda Seyfried Instagram)