Brie Larson Set To Play 'Victoria Woodhull' In Amazon Film On First US Woman Presidential Candidate

Actor Brie Larson will play Victoria Woodhull,who ran for the US presidency in 1872, nearly 50 years before American women could even vote. The women's rights suffragist was also a published author, creating the radical publication 'Woodhull and Claflin's Weekly' in 1870 with her sister. The duo also started the first woman-run stock brokerage company.

Woodhull ran for president under the banner of the Equal Rights Party—formerly the People’s Party—which supported equal rights for women and women’s suffrage. The party nominated her in May 1872 in New York City for the uphill battle against incumbent Republican Ulysses S. Grant and Democrat Horace Greeley. Woodhull selected as her running mate Frederick Douglass, former escaped slave-turned-abolitionist writer and speaker, writes Politico.

The only problem with the vice-presidential nomination is that "Douglass never appeared at the party’s nominating convention, never agreed to run with Woodhull, never participated in the campaign and actually gave stump speeches for Grant."

Amazon has bought the package, with Ben Kopit writing the script for the Woodhull story. Larson also will produce with Whalerock Industries’ Lloyd Braun and Andrew Mittman, and Anne Woodward will executive produce, writes Hollywood Reporter.