She Said Footage Reaction: Carey Mulligan And Zoe Kazan Lead The #MeToo Movement [CinemaCon 2022]
CinemaCon is happening right now in Las Vegas, and distributors and press are getting a glimpse of some of the movies we're going to see in the near future. Our own Ben Pearson is on the ground, bringing us the choicest bits of footage so it feels like we're there, watching along with him. The upcoming Universal Pictures film "She Said" is based on the book, "She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement" by Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor. These are the women who broke the story about Harvey Weinstein's harassment of women in Hollywood, bringing the #MeToo movement (already in motion) to the front and center of the world stage.
The film is the story of Twohey and Kantor, and how they got the story for the New York Times. "She Said" will reportedly focus more on their story than that of Weinstein.
Carey Mulligan (seen above in "Promising Young Woman") will play Megan Twohey, and Zoe Kazan ("The Big Sick") will play Jodi Kantor. Meanwhile, Kantor's husband will be played by Adam Shapiro ("Never Have I Ever"), and Tom Pelphrey ("Ozark") will play Twohey's husband. Patricia Clarkson ("Six Feet Under") is set to portray Rebecca Corbett, who was the editor for the New York Times investigation department, and Andre Braugher ("Brooklyn Nine-Nine") will play Dean Baquet, the New York Times executive editor. Samantha Morton will play one of Weinstein's former assistants Zelda Perkins.
Maria Schrader ("Unorthodox") will direct "She Said," and Academy Award-winner Rebecca Lenkiewicz ("Ida") will write the screenplay. Producers include Megan Ellison and Sue Naegle for Annapurna, and Brad Pitt for Plan B with Jeremy Kleiner and Dede Gardner.
#MeToo
Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan (seen above in "The Big Sick") took the stage to present footage from "She Said," as the two are playing Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor.
The footage opens on the New York Times building, with the editors wanting to interrogate the entire system. "I'm in touch with an actress who's been assaulted by a producer," we hear. The survivors don't want to be quoted. Our own Ben Pearson, on the ground at CinemaCon, says that the tone feels a lot like the 1976 Watergate flick, "All The President's Men."
The two women walk up to the door of someone who worked for Harvey Weinstein, who unceremoniously slams the door in their faces. They seem to finally be making headway when they interview the CFO of the Weinstein Company. "The only way these women are going to go on the record is if they all jump together," we hear. "This is bigger than Weinstein, this is about the system protecting abusers."
Then comes testimonies from a flurry of survivors, sentiments of, "He took my voice that day," and, "I was silenced, I want my voice back," ringing in their ears. An editor looks at one of the reporters and says, "You've got the story. Now it's time to write it." Pearson says that the footage looks really "propulsive," the story feels motivated by the personal, emotional stories of the survivors, and the film definitely seems to be prioritizing their voices. Suddenly, we hear a survivor say, "I've been waiting for you for 25 years."
The footage includes one shot of an actor portraying Harvey Weinstein from behind, but the image is mixed in with the other footage presented. The movie doesn't seem to be making him out to be some otherworldly powerful monster with the camera angles or anything of that sort, just a man with an important job, walking through a lobby, and flanked by a couple of people. The preview also included a lot of shots of the two reporters chatting face-to-face with a multitude of women, a jarring reminder of just how despicable and serial Weinstein's abuse was throughout the years.
"She Said" will hit theaters on November 18, 2022.