Hillary Clinton, Steven Spielberg to Produce Women’s Voting Rights Drama

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Joshua Caplan

Hillary Clinton and Steven Spielberg are joining forces to bring Elaine Weiss’ The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote to television.

Amblin TV, the television production division of Spielberg’s Amblin Partners, has named Clinton as an executive producer of the project, with talks still ongoing as to whether to turn the critically acclaimed book into a series or TV movie. Reports say Netflix, Amazon, Apple and HBO are among the online stream and premium cable networks that Amblin TV will pitch the project to.

The Hollywood Reporter writes:

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.

In a statement released Wednesday, Clinton said she is “thrilled,” to be working with Amblin Television on the project. “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,” the failed presidential candidate said in a statement. “Unfolding over six weeks in the summer of 1920, The Woman’s Hour is both a page-turning drama and an inspiration for everyone, young and old, male and female, in these perilous times. So much could have gone wrong, but these American women would not take no for an answer: their triumph is our legacy to guard and emulate. I am thrilled to be working with Elaine, Steven and everyone at Amblin Television on bringing this important project to audiences everywhere.”

On Tuesday, CBS Corp. revealed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will appear on Madam Secretary’s
season premiere airing on October 7.

Clinton tweeted about her enjoyment being on-set with the cast of the television show. “It was wonderful to spend some time with the team from @MadamSecretary on set in Brooklyn with a few former colleagues. Mark your calendars for October 7th!” she wrote.

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