Kathryn Hahn’s Joan Rivers biopic The Comeback Girl cancelled
A limited series starring Kathryn Hahn as Joan Rivers has been cancelled.
Last month, executives at Warner Bros. Television confirmed that the WandaVision actress would portray the comedy star, who died at the age of 81 in 2014, in a new TV show called The Comeback Girl for Showtime.
Hahn was set to executive produce the series alongside director Greg Berlanti, with Cosmo Carlson penning the script.
However, editors at Variety reported on Tuesday that producers had canned the project due to an issue securing the rights to Joan’s life story. The rights are reportedly held by the late star's daughter, Melissa Rivers.
Representatives for Melissa have not yet commented on the report.
The project attracted controversy when it was first announced, with comedienne Sarah Silverman calling out the casting of Kathryn, who was raised Catholic, as a Jewish woman.
“There's this long tradition of non-Jews playing Jews, and not just playing people who happen to be Jewish but people whose Jewishness is their whole being. One could argue, for instance, that a Gentile playing Joan Rivers correctly would be doing what is actually called 'Jewface,’” she said during an episode of her podcast, before insisting that she didn’t want to criticise Kathryn for taking on the role. "Kathryn Hahn did absolutely nothing wrong. She's a brilliant actor and she will be great as Joan, and singularly, I have zero problem with it.”
