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EXCLUSIVE: Oscar winning Juno scribe Diablo Cody is producing the feature directorial debut of Meredith Alloway, Forbidden Fruits.
Alloway is co-adapting the feature with playwright Lily Hougton off the latter’s play Of the Women Came the Beginning of Sin, and Through Her We All Die.
The projects follows Free Eden employee Apple, who secretly runs a witchy femme cult in the basement of the mall store after hours – with fellow fruits Cherry and Fig. But when new hire Pumpkin challenges their “girl boss” ways, the women are forced to face their own poisons or succumb to a bloody fate.
Cody, Mason Novick, Trent Hubbard and Mary Anne Waterhouse are set to produce the feature, via Novick’s MXN Entertainment banner.
EPs are Charlie Traisman and Katherine Romans from Madhouse Films alongside Casey Durant and Rachel Douglas from Range. WME Independent will be handling sales for the project.
“Forbidden Fruits grabbed me by the neck the very first time I read it,” Cody tells Deadline. “It’s one of the craziest, most creative, beautifully bonkers projects I’ve ever worked on. I feel so lucky to be collaborating with Meredith and Lily, who have become heroes of mine in short order.”
Alloway is a New York-based filmmaker whose short film Deep Tissue screened internationally after premiering at SXSW. She partnered with Hulu, Sundance Institute, and 20th Century Digital Studios on her next short films Ride and First Date. Alloway has various feature films that she wrote and will direct in development, including High Priestess with David S. Goyer’s company Phantom Four and Body Count with MXN and R.K. Films (Anyone But You). As a journalist, Meredith has written interviews and feature pieces for publications such as Vanity Fair, Playboy, Filmmaker Magazine, Nylon, and Indiewire.
Houghton is an award-winning playwright born and raised in Manhattan. She has multiple TV series in development with Elliot Page’s Page Boy Productions, Norman Reedus’ Big Bald Head Films, Blake Lively’s B For Effort and multiple projects with Gia Coppola attached to direct. On the feature side, Houghton recently adapted the novel Competitive Grieving by Nora Zelevansky for Belletrist and Rebelle Media. Her plays have been produced/developed at MCC Theater Company, Atlantic Theater Company, The Flea Theater, EST/Youngblood, NYU, Seattle Repertory Theater, Normal Ave, Yale, Contemporary American Theater Festival and Jermyn Street Theatre in London. She has won the 2023 American Playwriting Foundation Relentless Award, two Sloan Foundation Science Grants, the Elizabeth George Grant and was the recipient of the 2019 Launch Commission from the Atlantic Theater Company. She is a member of the Obie winning Youngblood at EST.
Alloway is repped by WME, Linden Entertainment & Jackoway Austen. Houghton is repped by UTA, Linden Entertainment & Jackoway Austen. Cody is repped by WME, MXN Entertainment and McKuin Frankel.
