Elizabeth Banks to play Karen Read in limited series on infamous murder trial
Elizabeth Banks is set to produce and star in a new limited series with Prime Video and Warner Bros on the polarising Karen Read court case.
The series will be based on the podcast, Karen, which follows a case from 2022 in which Read was accused of hitting her husband and police officer, John O’Keefe, with a SUV and leaving him to die.
The case eventually ended in June 2025. Read was found not guilty of most serious charges in a retrial, after her first trial ended in a mistrial due to a “starkly divided” hung jury.
During the case, her defence attorneys argued she was the victim of an elaborate cover-up and was being framed by a group of people. This included law enforcement. Hordes of women wearing pink would wait outside the courthouse every day to show their support. The trial has also been turned into a Netflix documentary.
Social media will play a huge part in the film. “This case proves crisis messaging today is about Reddit flair mods and who controls the subreddit sidebar narrative,” said Eric Schiffer, public relations expert, in light of a community named JusticeforKarenRead that amassed nearly 20,000 members on Reddit.
Read’s father even thanked “content providers” for keeping her out of jail through their overall presentation of her character in the public eye.
Banks will executive produce via Brownstone, along with production partners Max Handelman and Krissy Wall. Justin Noble will pen the series, and serve as executive producer.
Banks, who is known for her roles in Cocaine Bear and Charlie’s Angels, will next star in DreamQuil, an upcoming psychological thriller film starring John C. Reilly. It is set to be a cautionary tale on the dangers of allowing AI to creep steadily into the normative function of society.
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