Catherine Zeta-Jones is about to become the marriage counselor nobody should book. Tate Taylor’s psychological thriller Cupid has added Daisy Ridley, Darren Criss, Travis Fimmel and Judy Greer around her, and cameras are already rolling in Natchez, Mississippi.
The setup is lean and nasty. Ridley and Criss play a couple whose marriage is falling apart. They spend one weekend at the home of a counselor, played by Zeta-Jones, who seems helpful but works in unusual ways. The hopeful retreat sours as her methods turn crueler and more dangerous.
Fimmel and Greer have not had their roles revealed. The Van Dyke brothers, Carey and Shane, wrote the screenplay; their earlier credits include the story for Don’t Worry Darling. Taylor produces alongside his partner John Norris and Ryan Donnell Smith, and Jon Hamm is among the executive producers. The film is being shopped to buyers at the American Film Market this week.
Why Tate Taylor fits a domestic thriller
Taylor’s filmography reads like a map of the territory Cupid covers. He broke through as the writer-director of The Help (2011), which earned more than $200 million worldwide and a Best Picture nomination. He then pivoted to suspense with The Girl on the Train (2016), another story about a marriage cracking open, and to horror with Ma (2019), in which Octavia Spencer plays a lonely woman whose hospitality curdles into menace.
Put those two side by side and Cupid looks like a blend: the unhappy couple of The Girl on the Train meets the too-friendly host of Ma. Only this time the host has a professional license and a weekend to work with.
The location is personal, too. Taylor was born in Jackson, Mississippi, and lives in Church Hill, a short drive up the road from Natchez in the state’s southwest corner. Shooting there keeps the production close to home, as with several of his earlier Southern-set films.
A cast leaning into genre
For Ridley, Cupid continues a turn toward darker material. She starred in the zombie film We Bury the Dead earlier this year and also appears in Ti West’s Ebenezer, the horror-tinged take on A Christmas Carol that stars Johnny Depp as Scrooge. Badiyaa covered Paramount’s Ebenezer featurette with Depp as Scrooge ahead of that film’s November 13 release.
Greer is a genre regular, with credits across David Gordon Green’s Halloween films and Jurassic World. Criss is best known for Glee, and Fimmel most recently appeared in Dune: Prophecy.
Zeta-Jones, meanwhile, has been on screens through Netflix’s Wednesday, one of the streamer’s most watched series; Badiyaa looked at how Wednesday stacks up against Squid Game on Netflix’s own chart. Cupid hands her the kind of role she rarely gets: the villain at the center of the room.
What happens next
No distributor or release date has been announced. With filming under way in November and sales talks at the American Film Market, the earliest realistic window is a festival or theatrical slot in late 2027. Taylor’s last feature as director, Breaking News in Yuba County, came out in February 2021, so Cupid will end a gap of more than five years between his films.
Further reading
Image: David Shankbone, CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
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