The Boston Strangler is one of the most notorious killers in the history of the United States, and they’ll soon be immortalized in an upcoming film from Matt Ruskin. Featuring the likes of Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon as the reporters who first broke the story of the serial killer, the picture looked to some classic films based on journalism for inspiration. Not only that, but Ruskin tells us one director, in particular, helped inspire his work on this movie.
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“I love journalism films whether it’s Good Night, and Good Luck or All the President’s Men and then, of course, all of the true crime like Zodiac and just looking at other [David] Fincher films for camera direction and tone,” Ruskin says. “He’s just such a master, there’s so much to learn from everything he does and we really wanted to create this neo-noir darker feel where the weight of the murders hung over every frame of the movie.”
What is Boston Strangler about?
While the killer is responsible for at least 15 women in and around the Boston area in the early 1960s, this particular telling of the story focuses on a pair of journalists trying to uncover the identity of the killer.
“Having grown up in Boston, I had always heard of the Strangler in a very abstract sense, but I didn’t really know anything about the details of the case and a few years ago, I started reading about it and discovered a really fascinating, layered serial killer story,” Ruskin told Empire Magazine earlier this year. “I always loved journalism stories and in researching the case, I discovered these two journalists, starting with Loretta McLaughlin, the first journalist to connect the murders, and in her reporting, she actually gave the Boston Strangler his name. It was a really monumental story for her in her career in the early 1960s. She was a very ambitious reporter in a male-dominated field and this was a real turning point for her.”
Boston Stranglerย stars two-time Oscar nominee Keira Knightley (The Imitation Game,ย Pride & Prejudice), Emmy nominee Carrie Coon (Fargo,ย The Gilded Age), Alessandro Nivola (Amsterdam), David Dastmalchian (Dune), Morgan Spector (Homeland), Bill Camp (Joker), and Academy Award winner Chris Cooper (Adaptation). Written and directed by Matt Ruskin (Crown Heights), the film is produced by Ridley Scott (The Martian), Kevin J. Walsh (House of Gucci), Michael Pruss (American Woman), Josey McNamara (Promising Young Woman), and Tom Ackerley (I, Tonya), with Michael Fottrell (The Fate of the Furious) and Sam Roston serving as executive producers. Sam Roston is overseeing for Scott Free and Bronte Payne for LuckyChap.
Boston Stranglerย lands on Hulu on March 17th.
