On the heels of a release date reveal, more details have surfaced about Michael Showalter’s Verity.
The reveal of both a cast video message and an exclusive trailer came during the Amazon MGM Studios presentation at CinemaCon inside the Colosseum at Caesars Palace on Wednesday night in Las Vegas. The message came first with Showalter describing his film as a “gripping psychological thriller” followed by cast members Anne Hathaway, Josh Hartnett and Dakota Johnson explaining who they play while they sat alongside author Colleen Hoover who wrote the novel on which Verity is based.
The twisted footage came next. The project centers on a struggling writer, Lowen Ashleigh (Johnson), who is hired as a ghostwriter for renowned author Verity Crawford (Hathaway) under mysterious circumstances. The assignment takes a dark turn after discovering chilling autobiographical notes. Faced with deadly family secrets, Lowen struggles to separate fiction from reality, while also blurring the lines with Verity’s husband, Jeremy (Hartnett).
The footage opened with Hathaway and Hartnett’s characters meeting at a bar in a romantic moment that is presumably the start of their relationship. Cut to Johnson’s character going to a stunning architectural mansion. “Can she speak, does she even know what’s going on,” she asks as she discovers Crawford is confined to a wheelchair and appears to be completely immobile. “You’re the only writer who can do this,” Jeremy tells Lowen of taking on the assignment.
What came next was the twisted part. In a steamy scene, Lowen is making out with Jeremy while wearing a satin nightgown. She straddles him and the makeout session continues until she pulls back to discover that it’s Verity. In another shot, half of Lowen’s face is covered in blood. Yet another, she is outside peering up at the house and sees Verity standing and looking down on her from a window. At some point, police get involved because one of them turns up to ask Lowen, “Are you by chance working on the next Verity book?” She says, “It will be the best one yet.”
Nick Antosca adapted the book for the screen. Previous writers on the project include Hoover, Lauren Levine, Hillary Seitz, Angela LaManna, Will Honley and April Maguire. Showalter and Antosca are also producing with Alex Hedlund, Stacey Sher, Jordana Mollick, Hathaway and Hoover. Executive producers include Dakota Johnson, Lauren Levine and Kerry Orent. Production companies on the project include Eat the Cat, Semi-Formal Productions, Shiny Penny, Somewhere Pictures and Heartbones Entertainment.
Verity will hit theaters on May 15, 2026. Hoover self-published Verity in 2018 before Grand Central Publishing acquired it in 2021. The book went on to become a New York Times bestseller.
CinemaCon, the annual gathering of cinema owners and Hollywood studios, is hosted in Las Vegas by the newly rebranded Cinema United, which for decades was known as the National Association of Theatre Owners. This year’s edition runs from March 31 to April 3.
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