Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett turned out at AMC Lincoln Square 13 in New York City on Monday night for the world premiere of Verity, the big-budget adaptation of Colleen Hoover's dark psychological thriller that hits theaters nationwide this Friday. Director Michael Showalter and screenwriter Nick Antosca joined the cast on the carpet, alongside Hoover herself, marking the culmination of a promotional run that had already crossed the Atlantic.
A Star-Studded Carpet at Lincoln Square
According to the New York Daily News, the September 29 premiere drew a packed guest list beyond the three leads. Ismael Cruz Cordova, fellow author Emily Henry, and producers Stacey Sher, Alex Hedlund and Jordana Mollick were also on hand, as were Brady Wagner, Sienna Kulovitz, Tasha Polis, Mia Calabrese, Ubah Hassan and Tamsin Egerton. Photographer Dimitrios Kambouris documented the event, which was produced by Amazon MGM Studios.
The New York stop followed an international gala screening in London on September 24, where Hartnett and Johnson first appeared together to promote the film, as reported by Click Orlando. That London event kicked off a run of European press engagements ahead of the film's stateside launch. Per Wikipedia, Verity is now scheduled for wide release across the United States on October 2, just days after its Lincoln Square debut.
Inside the Story of Verity
The film adaptation follows Dakota Johnson as struggling author Lowen Ashleigh, hired by Jeremy Crawford, played by Josh Hartnett, to complete the book series of his incapacitated wife, bestselling novelist Verity Crawford, portrayed by Anne Hathaway, Click Orlando notes. The story centers on Lowen's discovery of Verity's dark, autobiographical manuscript inside the Crawford family estate. Amazon MGM Studios produced the psychological thriller alongside Eat the Cat, Semi-Formal Productions and Shiny Penny, with an estimated production budget of $40 million, according to Wikipedia.
Showalter directed the film from Antosca's screenplay, with producing credits shared by Hathaway and Hoover alongside Hedlund, Sher and Mollick, per a YouTube video from Sony Pictures UK. It marks a reunion for Showalter and Hathaway, who previously worked together on the 2024 romantic comedy The Idea of You, as noted by The Film Maven. This time, the director pivoted away from rom-com territory entirely for a much darker register.
How Hartnett Landed the Role
Hartnett has said his casting traces back to a series of meetings with Hathaway to discuss working together, which led her to send him the script while she was producing the project, according to a Forbes interview. The actor has recently built a run of high-profile roles, including parts in Oppenheimer and Trap, before signing on for Verity.
The Fourth Hoover Adaptation
Hoover's 2018 novel Verity marked a sharp turn into dark psychological suspense, a departure from the contemporary romance work she was known for at the time, and it was written years before her sales exploded through BookTok in 2020, per Collider. The film is the fourth Hoover book brought to the screen, following It Ends With Us, Regretting You and Reminders of Him, the outlet reports. Studios have closely tracked how each of Hoover's adaptations performs at the box office as her catalog keeps making the jump from page to screen.
Antosca, the film's screenwriter, built his career on horror and psychological thrillers, including work on the Cape Fear series project, the same Collider report notes. For Verity, he leaned into the tone of classic 1990s erotic thrillers, a choice that shapes much of the film's tension between Lowen, Jeremy and the manuscript's unsettling secrets. With the New York premiere behind it, Verity now heads into wide release to find out whether Hoover's fanbase will follow her into darker territory at the multiplex.
