Anna Kendrick’s quest for love is taking an unexpected turn. The “Love Life” star and exec producer is booking a date with a serial killer for her next project. The Oscar-nominated actress will topline and EP “Rodney & Sheryl,” the true story of a woman who chose a murderer on ABC game show “The Dating Game.” Netflix has acquired the drama. Deadline broke the news.
Directed by Chloe Okuno, the pic will revisit how Rodney Alcala competed and won a date with contestant Sheryl Bradshaw (Kendrick) on “The Dating Game.” Alcala “was in the midst of a killing spree in 1978 when he brazenly took part in the show,” the source details. “At that time, Alcala had murdered five women and been convicted of the attempted murder of a 12-year-old girl, but he made it onto the show because background checks were more lax. That left Bradshaw in a position where she was supposed to go on a chaperoned date with Alcala, only to find she was put off by his odd vibe. In 1980, he was sentenced to death for a murder and investigators found evidence — hundreds of photos of women, girls, and boys, and keepsakes police believed were from victims — in a storage locker.”
Following advances in DNA, Alcala was tied to more murders. He’s believed to have killed as many as 130 people. “His execution [was] postponed indefinitely when California declared a moratorium on death penalty cases in 2019,” Deadline details, and Alcala remains behind bars.
“Rodney & Sheryl” revolves around the events of the game show.
Okuno is in post-production on her feature debut, Maika Monroe-starrer “Watcher.” The psychological thriller tells the story of a woman who moves into a new apartment with her husband in Bucharest in the midst of citywide panic about a potential killer on the loose and becomes convinced she’s being stalked.
Kendrick received an Oscar nod in 2010 for “Up in the Air.” “Stowaway” and “A Simple Favor” are among her more recent film credits. She starred in the first season of HBO Max rom-com anthology series “Love Life,” which is set to return for a second season with a different lead.
