Katherine Heigl has signed to star in and produce ESCAPE, a new movie about the American polygamous sect founded by Warren Jeffs.

The movie will be based on the memoir of Carolyn Jessop, whose testimony helped to convict Jeffs of incest and sexual conduct with minors.

Jeffs, the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints, was jailed for 10 years in November (07).

Katherine Heigl will play Jessop, who was born into the sect and escaped when she 35 – with the eight children she had with an older man she was forced to marry at 18.