Dakota Johnson is channeling her inner scream queen while filming Verity in New York City.
Fans flocked to Midtown on Wednesday, March 12, to watch Johnson, 35, get covered in blood as she filmed the forthcoming movie’s opening scene with costar Josh Hartnett.
The production team set up the bloody crash scene as onlookers took several videos of the moment.
Johnson’s costume was a business casual look with burnt orange pants paired with a trenchcoat. She was wearing headphones that were also covered in blood. Hartnett, 46, was spotted in a full suit.
Josh Hartnett Joins Cast of Colleen Hoover’s ‘Verity’ Movie
Verity is based on the book of the same name by Colleen Hoover, and the aforementioned crash scene opens the novel, which was published in 2018. The story follows budding writer Lowen (Johnson) who meets a wealthy man name Jeremy (Hartnett) while on the way to a publisher meeting, but her plans get derailed after she watches a biker get hit by a car. Unbeknownst to her, Jeremy is who she has the meeting with. Jeremy taps Lowen to be his incapacitated — or maybe not — wife Verity’s (Anne Hathaway) ghostwriter.
This is the second of Hoover’s novels to be adapted for the big screen, following the release of It Ends With Us last summer. (Her Regretting You novel is in the process of being adapted as well.)
(@mickmicknyc)Johnson and Hartnett’s casting was announced in December 2024, a month after Hathaway, 42, signed on to play the titular character.
Hathaway is also set to produce the project with her Somewhere Pictures studio, and this will be her second collaboration with director Michael Showalter. Johnson has also been named as an executive producer on the film.
“Excited is an understatement,” author Hoover captioned a December 2024 Instagram post reacting to news of the film adaptation.
Does Author Colleen Hoover Make a Cameo in ‘It Ends With Us’ Movie?
Wednesday’s viral bloody videos were not the first time Hoover fans got a look at Hartnett on set. Production on the movie kicked off late last month in NYC with Harnett and Hathaway running around the Big Apple.
Photos showed Hathaway wearing a red dress and laughing as she ran alongside her onscreen husband, who looked to be in disarray with a bowtie hanging off his neck. Readers can only speculate which flashback scene they were filming.
Hoover first spoke about the Verity casting when attending an event in August 2024.
“We are discussing casting next week,” she said at the time. “I need to get on that because right now they’re all just blurs in my head. I’m so excited that this one’s starting to take off.”
