Theranos (or at least its story) goes Hollywood

A brilliant and beautiful young billionaire. A fast-rising startup with a disruptive medical technology. Allegations the company's product doesn't work. Federal investigations.

It's the Theranos story, and Adam McKay wants to follow up his critically acclaimed film about the financial crisis, “The Big Short,” with a movie about its rise and (so far) fall, Deadline Hollywood, an entertainment news website, reported this month.

Hollywood it girl Jennifer Lawrence has signed on to play CEO Elizabeth Holmes, the Stanford dropout who founded Theranos in 2003. McKay, who directed “The Big Short” and won an Oscar for co-writing it, will write and direct what is for now known as “Untitled Elizabeth Holmes Project” on IMDB.com.

Theranos has come under fire from the Wall Street Journal and regulators, who have claimed that its tests are unreliable. The company is being investigated by a hodgepodge of federal and state agencies, including the CMS and federal prosecutors.

The lab startup was valued at $9 billion in 2014 and Holmes, once deemed one of America's youngest female billionaires, was valued at $4.5 billion last fall by Forbes. But the business publication now estimates Theranos' value at $800 million, and rates Holmes' net worth to be zip.

Lawrence and McKay are co-producing the untitled film and likely will be receiving bids from studios in the coming weeks, according to Variety, a sister publication of Deadline.