Hillary Clinton and Steven Spielberg to make TV series on women's suffrage

Hillary Clinton and Steven Spielberg to make TV series on women's suffrage

Ex-secretary of state and Oscar winner to adapt Elaine Weiss’s book The Woman’s Hour, tracking the fight for women’s voting rights

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Hillary Clinton and Steven Spielberg are teaming up to adapt Elaine Weiss’s critically acclaimed book The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote for television. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the former secretary of state and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee will executive produce the series with Spielberg’s Amblin Television. Weiss’s book, which was released in March to rave reviews, tells the inside story of the fight to ratify the 19th amendment, internecine disagreements about how past to secure the vote, and the racism that affected the women’s suffrage movement.


Called a “gold mine” by the New York Times, The Woman’s Hour will reportedly be shopped around to premium cable channels and streaming platforms as either a TV movie or a series. Although a screenwriter is not yet attached to the project, Clinton is said to be intimately involved in the selection process.

“At the heart of democracy lies the ballot box, and Elaine Weiss’ unforgettable book tells the story of the female leaders who – in the face of towering economic, racial and political opposition – fought for and won American women’s right to vote,” said Clinton, whose move to television echoes Barack and Michelle Obama’s production deal with Netflix.

She added: “I am thrilled to be working with Elaine, Steven and everyone at Amblin Television on bringing this important project to audiences everywhere.”

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https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/aug/01/hillary-clinton-steven-spielberg-the-womans-hour


Hillary Clinton, Steven Spielberg Bringing Women's Voting Drama to TV (Exclusive)

Amblin TV has optioned the rights to Elaine Weiss' 'The Woman's Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote," with the former secretary of state and first lady attached as an executive producer.


Bruce Glikas/FilmMagic; Courtesy of Viking; David Livingston/Getty Images
Amblin TV has optioned the rights to Elaine Weiss' 'The Woman's Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote," with the former secretary of state and first lady attached as an executive producer.

Hillary Clinton is setting her sights on a new office: executive producer. The former secretary of state is teaming with Steven Spielberg's Amblin Television to bring Elaine Weiss' critically acclaimed book The Woman's Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote to the small screen. The drama will mark Clinton's debut as an exec producer. The book, published in March, follows the activists who led the decades-long fight to grant women the right to vote and sheds light on how close the battle to ratify the 19th Amendment really was. The book celebrates those who changed history and laid the foundation for the civil rights movement that came decades later.
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Sources say as Weiss was writing the book, she was struck by the parallels between the women's suffrage movement and the 2016 presidential election between Clinton and Donald Trump. It then became a priority for the author and journalist — whose work has appeared in multiple publications and on NPR — to get her book in Clinton's hands. Eventually, she met a bookstore owner who delivered The Woman's Hour to Clinton. The latter, sources say, loved the contemporary and relevant issues the book tackled and felt it would be an important story to tell on TV while also creating strong roles for women. Clinton called her attorney, Robert Barnett at Williams Connolly, and eventually met and hit it off with Weiss before calling frequent supporter Spielberg, who brought in Amblin TV. The expectation is that Clinton will be actively involved in the search for a writer and eventually the script, director and casting.

The Woman's Hour arrives as women continue to battle for rights amid a political landscape in which male lawmakers have attempted to defund Planned Parenthood, among other efforts, and in a culture in which sexual misconduct has exposed how pervasive the problem is in every corner of society.

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https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/hillary-clinton-adapting-womans-hour-tv-steven-spielberg-1131291