EXCLUSIVE: Amazon MGM Studios‘ Verity, based on the #1 New York Times bestseller by Colleen Hoover, has five new cast additions: Ismael Cruz Cordóva (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power), Brady Wagner (Broadway’s Merrily We Roll Along), Irina Dvorovenko (And Just Like That…), K.K. Moggie (The Good Wife), and Michael Abbott Jr. (The Drama).
No word yet on the roles to be played by the newcomers. As previously announced, Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson, and Josh Hartnett will lead the ensemble of the theatrical feature, with Michael Showalter directing from a script by Nick Antosca. The film is one of a number of Hoover adaptations in the works on the heels of It Ends with Us, which proved a phenomenon upon its August 2024 release, with over $346M in worldwide box office receipts.
The story follows Lowen Ashleigh (Johnson), a struggling writer who is on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford (Hartnett), husband of bestselling thriller author Verity Crawford (Hathaway), has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series that his wife is unable to finish after a mysterious accident. Upon arrival at the lavish Crawford estate, Lowen slowly learns that things are not exactly as they seem with the discovery of a secret, unfinished manuscript that may divulge chilling admissions about the family’s past. As Lowen ingratiates herself with Jeremy and his young son Crew, she must discern if Verity’s writings are merely lurid works of fiction or an ominous warning by a deranged psychopath.
Hoover self-published in 2018, with Grand Central Publishing acquiring Verity in 2021. The gothic psychosexual thriller has spent months on the New York Times Best Sellers list, selling more than a million copies in 2023 alone.
Eat the Cat’s Antosca and Alex Hedlund will produce the feature take alongside Semi-Formal Productions’ Showalter and Jordana Mollick, Somewhere Pictures’ Hathaway, Heartbones Entertainment’s Hoover, and Shiny Penny’s Stacey Sher. Johnson will exec produce, along with Heartbones Entertainment’s Lauren Levine. The film falls under Semi-Formal Productions’ first-look film deal with the studio. Prior writers on the project included Hoover & Lauren Levine, Hillary Seitz, Angela LaManna, and Will Honley & April Maguire.
Cordóva is represented by UTA, Anonymous Content, and Peikoff Mahan Law Office; Wagner by Paradigm; Dvorovenko by Encompass Arts, LLC; Moggie by Artists & Representatives; and Abbott Jr. by Untitled Entertainment, CESD, and Glaser Weil Fink.
