While former Smallville actress Allison Mack may be out on bail, she still faces charges of sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy, and forced labor conspiracy for her involvement with Keith Raniere’s alleged cult NXIVM. What’s more, evidence of her apparent attempts to lure other female celebrities into the mix — like Harry Potter star Emma Watson and singer Kelly Clarkson — has painted a rather sordid picture of what Mack was supposedly doing for the past few years. And according to two separate reports, it seems NXIVM’s story has been enough to generate deals for a TV series adaptation and a documentary.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Annapurna Television has optioned the rights to the 2017 New York Times report that started it all. A particular writer has yet to be picked (or announced) for the project, but the report did note that Westworld actress Shannon Woodward (who played Elsie Hughes), as well as Annapurna’s Megan Ellison, Sue Naegle, and Susan Goldberg, will executive produce the series:
The potential series, Annapurna says, follows what happens when women, who join what they’re told is a secret sisterhood created to empower them, find themselves psychologically enthralled and horrifically sexually enslaved to its leader — and their flesh branded with his initials.
Meanwhile, Deadline reports that former NXIVM member Sarah Edmondson and her husband Anthony Ames will headline a documentary series about the alleged “sex cult” in which they team up with “renowned cult expert and deprogrammer Rick Alan Ross” to “reacclimate into society.” Along the way, the pair will “also [be] helping others (many of whom they had recruited) leave NXIVM and the DOS secret society within it.”
(Via The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline)