Ever since her critical success in 2019 with comedy “Booksmart,” Olivia Wilde’s directorial follow-up has been hotly anticipated — especially once details started to emerge about its casting and story. Now a new trailer offers an unsettling look at the thriller, which Wilde has described as “a love letter to movies that push the boundaries of our imagination.”
In it, Florence Pugh and Harry Styles star as a young married couple who live in Victory, the experimental, supposedly utopian company town that houses the men who work for the top-secret Victory Project. While their lives seem perfect, cracks in reality start to show for Pugh’s Alice, who begins questioning the real motives behind the project and the man in charge of it (Chris Pine). Gemma Chan (“The Eternals”), KiKi Layne (“The Old Guard”), and Wilde herself all support as fellow housewives, seemingly of varying trustworthiness.
Wilde debuted the footage at the recent CinemaCon, and cited “The Matrix,” “Inception,” and “The Truman Show” as inspiration for the film, along with psychosexual thrillers “Fatal Attraction” and “Indecent Proposal.”
The script was penned by Katie Silberman (“Booksmart,” “Set It Up”) from a spec by Carey and Shane Van Dyke.
During her presentation, Entertainment Weekly reports that Wilde told audience members: “I became a director hoping to one day make a movie like this: [one that is] thrilling, really beautiful, equally challenging, and fun, above all else. It’s my passion project, my greatest challenge, and my third child, and I’m so grateful to be able to be making movies — it’s a privilege I don’t take lightly. I can honestly say this film is my dream come true in every aspect.”
Wilde also has “Perfect,” a biopic of Olympic gymnast Kerri Strug, and a Spider-Woman movie for Marvel on her directing slate. Some of her most recent on-screen credits include “Richard Jewell” and “A Vigilante.”
Pugh recently delighted audiences in Marvel’s “Hawkeye” series, and has been announced to star in the upcoming “Dune: Part Two.” She is also set to star in and produce an adaptation of Nita Prose’s novel “The Maid.”
“Don’t Worry Darling” will be in theaters September 23.
