Following its work on A Complete Unknown, Searchlight Pictures’ Academy Award-nominated Bob Dylan biopic directed by James Mangold and starring Timothée Chalamet, Veritas Entertainment has launched development on a feature adaptation of My Mama Cass, the bestselling memoir on music icon Cass Elliot, penned by her daughter Owen Elliot-Kugell.
Baby Reindeer breakout Jessica Gunning has attached to play Elliot, a founding member of ’60s folk-rock quartet The Mamas & The Papas. Novelist and screenwriter Emma Forrest (Namedropper, Thin Skin) is adapting the screenplay, with Veritas, led by Peter Jaysen and Alan Gasmer, attached to produce after packaging the project.
My Mama Cass is billed as a definitive film on Cass Elliot, centered on her life, legacy, and the mother-daughter bond that shaped them both, rather than a traditional biopic on the Mamas & the Papas member. It’ll explore how, in a musical landscape that was not short on iconoclasts, Elliot was a trailblazer. But her true power was that she took things the world didn’t want to give her…a gifted, outspoken singer who refused to be defined by her weight or the men around her, forging a singular career and choosing motherhood on her own terms at a time when the culture wasn’t ready for any of it. The film also highlights Owen’s journey to unravel the truth surrounding her mother’s untimely death — finally laying to rest a long-standing urban legend of how she tragically died at the age of 32.
Gunning is the English actress who broke out with her starring turn opposite Richard Gadd in his Netflix stalker thriller Baby Reindeer, earning an Emmy, a Golden Globe, and a SAG Award, among other top accolades. Upcoming, she’ll be seen starring alongside James Norton, Bella Ramsey and Neil Patrick Harris in the dramedy Sunny Dancer, which is set to premiere in Berlin. She also stars alongside Ian McKellen, Michaela Coel and James Corden in Steven Soderbergh’s dark comedy The Christophers, a project we scooped, which Neon releases in April. She is represented by UTA and Jonty Brook at Markham Froggatt & Irwin.
Focused on adapting books and other IP into premium film and television, Veritas’ Jaysen led producers on A Complete Unknown, from development through production. For television, Veritas has co-executive produced Vikings (History Channel), Dublin Murders (BBC/Starz), Fahrenheit 451 (HBO), The Searcher (HBO), American Playboy (Amazon), The Mosquito Coast (Apple TV+), You Me Her (Audience/DirecTV/Netflix International), and A Spy Among Friends (MGM+/ITVX).
Upcoming, Veritas is also producing a reboot of Pacific Blue with Fox Entertainment Studios, The Nanny at TNT, and Liar, Dreamer, Thief with Bell Media for Crave, among other projects. Gasmer and Jaysen have set up films at studios like Netflix, Paramount, Warner Bros., and Amazon, with Gasmer set to produce a forthcoming reimagining of Cannonball Run.
English (US) ·