Kristen Bell and Jonathan Groff will star together in the new musical Molly and the Moon. The movie will tell the story of the real-life experience of writer and producer Craig Thomas and his wife Rebecca Alson-Milkman whose son Elliot was born with a rare genetic disorder, Jacobsen Syndrome. Craig Thomas is writing partners with Carter Bays and together they co-created the television series How I Met Your Mother. Now, the writing team is behind the musical Molly and the Moon that will star Bell and Groff. Deadline broke the news and spoke to Carter Bays who discussed the birth of his son, Elliot.
Carter and I were running the show and between Season 2 and Season 3, my wife and I were having our first kid, a boy, Elliot. I was heading into parenthood and I figured everything was going according to the life script I imagined for myself. I’m going to have this healthy, perfect kid and come back and keep running that show. Instead, life served up an enormous curveball to us. We discovered after he was born that Elliot had Jacobsen Syndrome, a rare genetic deletion where a piece of one of the 11th chromosomes has broken off, resulting in the loss of certain genes that go into making a healthy, typical baby.
Craig continued to tell the publication about the difficult time that baby Elliot underwent during his first few months of life. He had heart surgery at two weeks old and his parents were unable to hold him due to his staying in an incubator. The only way that Rebecca and Craig could bond with their little son was through music and they would sing songs and lullabies to him repeatedly.
This is where the story for Molly and the Moon was birthed and why this movie may turn out to be a viral sensation in the pro-life community.
Craig described the basis for the movie to Deadline as follows.
Kate, our lead character, the mother, is singing a lullaby to her pregnant belly and the camera pushes in on her pregnant belly and that is our entrance into a whole other world where we see a mysterious little girl in a rowboat in the middle of the ocean, looking up at the moon and hearing that song, hearing that lullaby come through the moon. It’s the moment you realize there’s this little soul, this life that wants to exist and be in the world and wants to reach the sound of that voice. She doesn’t know what it means or who it is. It just sounds like love, and she wants to reach it, and that’s sort of the moment that we connect the two worlds of our movie, the world of Molly and the real world that her parents are living in.
Two of the nicest guys I've ever known (@HimymCraig and @CarterBays) are working on a beautiful and profound film about being a parent. I cried just reading the description. So happy for these two. Elliott will be so proud of you, @HimymCraig https://t.co/0tXFMcDODo
— George “George” Sloan (@georgesloan) November 5, 2020
Craig Thomas posted this tweet back in 2013 about baby Elliot.
For folks asking: My son has Jacobsen Syndrome or 11q Terminal Deletion…it's rare and there is only ONE guy in America working on it!
— Craig Thomas (@HimymCraig) November 10, 2013
Molly and the Moon is based on Craig’s and Rebecca’s experience of using music to reach and bond with Elliot but the musical may strike a chord with the pro-life community as the story focuses on the baby who hears the song of love and wants to be alive.
Are you looking forward to seeing Molly and the Moon?
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Charisse Van Horn is a freelance writer from Tampa Bay. She enjoys writing about celebrities, entertainment, and fashion. Any reproduction of this article outside of Celebrity Insider will be met with legal action by the writer.
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