Dreamworks Studios is behind the film that will be directed and adapted by Tate Taylor. Janney (9 to 5) will play the mother of the film's central character Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan, played by Emma Stone.
Davis (Fences) and Octavia Spencer are cast as maids Aibileen Clark and Minny Jackson, respectively. Bryce Dallas Howard (As You Like It) will play Hilly.
Filming will begin in Greenwood, MS, this summer with an in-theatre premiere anticipated for 2011.
Set during the Civil Rights era, "The Help" centers on a young writer who begins collecting the stories of three African-American maids in the town of Jackson, MS.
