We really should have seen this coming based on the title alone.
Kate McKinnon has dropped out of The Dropout, the Hulu series about disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes. The Saturday Night Live comedian was set to star in and executive produce the series when it was announced in April 2019, and Hulu had ordered it straight to series.
Now, The Hollywood Reporter reports that the series is still continuing, but the lead role will be recast.
The Dropout is based on the ABC News podcast of the same name and will follow the rise and fall of Holmes, a deep-voiced, turtleneck-loving blonde and her biotech start-up Theranos, the blood-testing machine that didn't work, despite Holmes having raised hundreds of millions of dollars for it.
Serving as EP alongside McKinnon was ABC News correspondent and podcast host Rebecca Jarvis. Podcast producers Taylor Dunn and Victoria Thompson will also produce.
However, McKinnon is still sinking her teeth into other projects. She is signed on to play Carole Baskin in the UCP Tiger King-inspired miniseries, which will air simultaneously on NBC, USA and Peacock.
That series follows "Carole Baskin, a big cat enthusiast, who learns that when fellow exotic animal lover Joe 'Exotic' Schreibvogel is breeding and using his big cats for profit, she sets out to shut down his venture, inciting a quickly escalating rivalry," reads the official series description. "But Carole has a checkered past of her own and when the claws come out, Joe will stop at nothing to expose what he sees as her hypocrisy. The results prove dangerous."
Perhaps Baskin was more than enough real-life people for McKinnon to take on at one time.
The real Holmes, meanwhile, will face felony fraud charges and a potential 20 years in prison in a trial beginning March 9.