John Lithgow Set As Roger Ailes In Charles Randolph Film At Annapurna

John Lithgow (The Crown) has been tapped to portray Roger Ailes, the late Fox News brass, in Annapurna’s Untitled Charles Randolph Project, which will focus on the point of view of the women who took on the toxic male culture of Fox News and helped depose its chief architect. Charlize Theron is attached to star as Megyn Kelly. Jay Roach is directing the pic from a script by Randolph, an Oscar winner for adapting The Big Short. Annapurna is producing the film along with Charlize Theron, who will also star, as well as Beth Kono, and AJ Dix of Denver and Delilah. Roach, Randolph and Lighthouse Management and Media’s Margaret Riley are also producing. The film will be released sometime next year.

There’s another Ailes project in the works. Oscar winner Russell Crowe set to star as the disgraced TV exec in Showtime’s eight-episode yet-to-be-titled limited series based on Gabriel Sherman’s bestselling book The Loudest Voice in the Room and his extensive reporting for New York magazine. The series, told through multiple points of view, will focus on the past decade Ailes’ life, while flashing back to defining events, including an initial meeting with Richard Nixon on the set of The Mike Douglas Show that gave birth to Ailes’ political career and the sexual harassment accusations and settlements that brought his Fox News reign to an end.

Variety was first to report Lithgow’s casting.