Emmy Award-winning screenwriter Kirk Ellis has signed on to script the movie Escape, which will star Katherine Heigl.
The movie will be a break from the rom-coms with which the Grey’s Anatomy star has been making her celluloid name, given that it’s a drama based on real-life events about a wife who escapes from a polygamous marriage in which she’s been held against her will.
Carolyn Jessop and her eight children managed to get away from the forced marriage and the Fundamentalist Church Of Jesus Christ Of The Latter Day Saints, and went on to write a book about her ordeal. That book will be adapted by Ellis, who won an Emmy recently for his work on the HBO mini-series, John Adams.
The Fundamentalist Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter Days Saints (rolls off the tongue that one), is a much frowned-upon polygamous off-shoot of the Mormon church (officially known as the Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints). Heigl and her mother Nancy, who are both Mormons, will produce the movie through their company, Abishag, along with Michael Menchel and Catherine Williams.