John Lee Hancock‘s legal drama about the landmark legal trial against U.S. chemical company Monsanto just added more star power. LaKeith Stanfield, Julia McDermott, David Duchovny, Melonie Diaz, Bilal Hasna and Greg Kinnear have signed on to join previously announced stars, Jonathan Bailey and Laura Dern.
The yet-to-be-titled film follows the true story of young, untried attorney Brent Wisner (Bailey), who in 2019 took on a seemingly insurmountable case against the giant U.S. chemical company Monsanto on behalf of Dewayne “Lee” Johnson (Stanfield), who used the company’s best-known product Roundup, a wildly financially successful weed and grass pesticide killer, as part of his job as a high school groundskeeper. Dern plays Dr. Melinda Rogers, the Monsanto Company’s chief toxicologist, who testifies with certainty that Roundup is safe during the trial.
The Johnson vs. Monsanto case was the first Roundup cancer lawsuit to proceed to trial and ended with a verdict determining that Roundup causes non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The jury awarded Johnson $289 million for failing to warn consumers that exposure to Roundup weed killer causes cancer. The verdict set a precedent that paved the way for thousands of subsequent lawsuits and jury verdicts against Monsanto’s parent company, Bayer.
Hancock (“The Blind Side,” “Saving Mr. Banks”) directs from a screenplay he wrote with Michael Wisner, Alexandra Duparc and Ned Benson. Moritz Borman, Eric Kopeloff, Philip Schulz-Deyle, Adam McKay, Kevin Messick and Jon Levin are producing the project. Netflix picked up the rights to the project out of Cannes in 2024; CAA Media Finance brokered the deal on behalf of the filmmakers.
“I was drawn to this contemporary David vs. Goliath true story because I found it dramatic, moving, quite funny and of critical importance in today’s world,” Hancock said before the film’s sale. “My ambitions are to deliver a smart, thoughtful and commercial legal drama that takes the audience on a human journey.”
Indeed, Hancock’s film is timely, as the U.S. Supreme Court is currently deciding whether federal law preempts a state-level “failure-to-warn” claim when the EPA has not mandated a cancer warning. In April, the court heard oral arguments from Monsanto asserting that they should be shielded from future “failure-to-warn” claims, backed by the EPA’s stance that Roundup is safe and doesn’t require cancer warnings on the label. A ruling is expected this month.
Julia McDermott and David Duchovny; Melonie Diaz and Bilal Hasna.
McDermott: Thomas Brunot / Duchovny: Mark Mann / Diaz: Stephanie Girard / Hasna: Yellowbelly
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