Woman of the Hour found a savior in Anna Kendrick, just when he needed it most.

The true crime thriller is now streaming on Netflix and marks the feature film debut for Kendrick, who also stars. The film is based on the story of real-life serial killer Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto) and his reputation as the ‘Dating Game Killer’, as the story centers on his appearance in a 1978 episode of The dating game with bachelorette Cheryl Bradshaw. (The name of the main female character, played by Kendrick, is “Sheryl” for the film.)

More from The Hollywood Reporter

During his conversation with The Hollywood Reporterscreenwriter Ian McDonald explains why he felt compelled to change the game show’s dialogue, his failed attempts to connect with the film’s subject matter, and why he hopes the streaming film will be “received as art, not content.”

How did you know this story would work for a movie?

It really started when I read an article online about one of those lists of strange true crime stories.

Are you a true crime fan?

A little yes, a little no. The serial killer stories I love are usually fictional. What interested me in Rodney Acala was not so much him, but everything about him. As I did more research, everyone (who knew him and heard of his crimes) said, “Yes, that makes sense.” People will compare him to Ted Bundy, but Ted Bundy was very good at pretending to be a good-natured, all-American guy, and Rodney Alcala didn’t even do that. The most interesting thing about him is the way the people around him look the other way, and how that allowed him to get away with bad behavior for as long as he did. Sometimes that is police or The dating game or just the legal system in general.

Your script was on the Black List in 2017. How did it end up being a directorial debut for Anna Kendrick?

It was a very long process. I started the first draft in 2016, so it’s been almost eight years. It almost died four times where it was at one production company, and then that fell apart. There was a podcast about Rodney Alcala, and the podcast company had a first look deal with a TV company, and I was like, “Mine died right at the time this podcast was released.” That’s the end.” And it’s heartbreaking; it’s terrible. Honestly, when Anna got to direct, everything was going very, very slowly, and then suddenly it went extremely fast, where suddenly we were shooting in six weeks, and we had a financier and a budget. Anna saved the movie.

How did she find it to work with?

It couldn’t have gone better. She saw the movie exactly as I did, and she just had really smart, sharp notes. But more importantly, her notes were things that made the script more of what I wanted, not less. She had a new set of eyes and she could see things that I had become blind to over the years. A great collaborator.

Were you hoping to connect with the real Cheryl?

I tried to contact Cheryl. First of all, I couldn’t find her, and to some extent I saw that as a choice. These have been there Dateline episodes about Rodney Alcala, and there are previous victims involved, and she has never appeared in anything like this. I assumed this meant she didn’t really want this one chance encounter with a psychopath to define her life. That’s part of the reason why I changed the name and some key elements of the biography and background. It’s more like an alternate world version of Cheryl. If this Cheryl had been on this game show, this is how it could have gone.

Is Daniel’s performance what you envisioned for Rodney?

He was just perfect. The really tricky thing was, when you go back and look at Rodney in real life Dating gameyou couldn’t just put that dialogue in a movie because it would be like, “Obviously he’s a serial killer.” Dating etiquette and norms have changed between 1978 and 2024, and what is a funny joke and what is an off-color, off-putting joke has changed over the past 50 years. If you take that exactly as it was, people will say, “Well, Cheryl’s an idiot.” Daniel’s big advantage was making sure today’s audiences could feel what the women feel, and he does a great job.

Why would Rodney do something so public in the midst of this crime wave?

He’s like a lot of sociopaths where he doesn’t think he’ll get caught. I guess he thought it would be fun. Maybe there was even an element of showboating.

Are there any important insights from the film that relate to contemporary society?

Rodney’s behavior feels very masculine to me, but he only represents one end of the spectrum of toxic male behavior. The other end of the spectrum is the friend who says, “Don’t you think they would have vetted him?” The game show host is somewhere in the middle. So if you really examine all that, and the way that the other way when there’s a problem for you to look at, it all helps. A lot of people will be able to look at the spectrum and say, “I can see myself in some of this, and we have a collective responsibility to do better.”

What’s next for you as a writer, and are you being offered projects similar to this one?

I’m working on five or six things right now, and I’m excited about them all. What I’m particularly excited about is that they’re all very different, and I try to be very conscious and conscientious about not being “the serial killer guy,” especially because that would be a very depressing way to live. . Actually doing the research it took to write this, which took years, was just grueling because you read about horrible, traumatic, horrible things – day in, day out – and yet there’s no other alternative because you’re dealing with the material must engage. to tell the story truthfully. I’m proud of the film and I could see myself writing something like this again someday. I want to make sure this isn’t the only thing I do.

What are your expectations from the film?

I know true crime is very zeitgeisty right now. I hope it survives the zeitgeist. I hope that in ten, twenty years it will be a film that we are talking about. And I hope it is received as art, not content, and that is completely beyond my control. Both Anna and I were very serious about the story we were telling and put a lot of thought and effort into it. I just hope it’s received that way because that was always my biggest fear, that it’s like, “Oh, it’s another serial killer, true crime movie of the week.”

The best of The Hollywood Reporter

Sign up for the THR newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.