We’ll Be Seeing Roger Ailes and Megyn Kelly’s Feud on the Big Screen Courtesy of ‘The Big Short’ Writer
Batman v. Superman. Godzilla vs. Mothra. Kramer vs. Kramer. Throughout film history we have been treated to the battle royales of battle royales, the feuds to end all feuds, but there may be one that stands above all others. Earlier this year, Fox News host Megyn Kelly, along with other female employees of the network, both names and unnamed, accused now-former Fox News chairman Roger Ailes of sexual harassment. The ensuing waterfall of accusations combined with a lawsuit leveled against him by Gretchen Carlson caused Ailes to resign form his position in July. If you’ve been hungry for all the hot deets on the scandal to be brought to light, perhaps on the big screen, get ready for your dreams to be realized. The Ailes-Kelly feud is being made into a movie by one of the screenwriters behind The Big Short.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Charles Randolph pitched the idea to a bunch of studios this week before Annapurna Pictures gleefully snatched it up. The story will focus on Kelly and Carlson and the other women who brought Ailes down, as well as his wife, Elizabeth Tilson, who supported him through it all. There aren’t any life story rights attached to the pitch, which some studios found concerning (life story rights allow moviemakers to portray real people’s lives onscreen), but the Reporter says that plenty of information about the suit is already in the public domain. And if we learned anything from The Big Short, aside from how the banks caused the financial collapse and that everything is terrible, it’s that Randolph is an expert an unearthing everyone’s dirty corporate secrets.
So the next question is, who’s gonna be the lucky pair of actors to portray these two onscreen? It’s a shame Orson Welles isn’t around anymore, but maybe Alec Baldwin could give us a good Ailes, or perhaps James Spader. My money’s on Margot Robbie for Kelly, for sure — she was in The Big Short, after all, and she can expertly fake an American accent. Think about it. Despite ourselves, we want to watch this movie.