Legendary gets Lawrence's 'Bad Blood'

Legendary Pictures has won a bidding war for Bad Blood, a high finance tale with Jennifer Lawrence (pictured) attached to star and Adam McKay set to write and direct.

Universal will distribute worldwide under its deal with Legendary.

Lawrence will play Elizabeth Holmes, the controversial US health tech entrepreneur who founded Theranos, a startup whose blood testing technology earned it a multi-billion dollar valuation before the company came under federal investigation.

McKay most recently directed and co-wrote Wall Street dramedy The Big Short, for which he and Charles Randolph won last year’s best adapted screenplay Oscar.

The Bad Blood package - which included film rights to a book proposal about Holmes and Theranos - reportedly attracted bids from Big Short-distributor Paramount and several other studios and mini-majors as well as Legendary.

The film will be produced by McKay and his Gary Sanchez production company partners Will Ferrell and Kevin Messick, together with Lawrence.

The deal was originally reported by Deadline Hollywood.