See Keira Knightley In First Look At Her Serial Killer Drama
Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon appear in the first production photos released from the upcoming Boston Strangler.
It’s been a year since we first received the news that Keira Knightley would be appearing in a film surrounding one of the most prolific serial killers of all-time and now, thanks to Deadline, we have our first look at the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise star in action. Based on a true story, Boston Strangler will see Keira Knightley team up alongside Carrie Coon as their characters investigate the killings of the titular murderer. The recently released images, which you can see below, transport us back to the early 1960s with Knightley and Coon’s characters dressed in garments of the time – hairdos and all – and hot on the killer’s track.
Landing on Hulu in the U.S. on March 17, Boston Strangler will see Keira Knightley as Loretta McLaughlin, an investigative journalist for the Record-American newspaper, who dives headfirst into the series of strangulations plaguing the Boston area. With her efforts looked down on by the patriarchy, McLaughlin enlists in the help of another journalist named Jean Cole (Carrie Coon) to help further her investigation. As the two step further into one of America’s darkest tales of true crime, they find themselves on the brink of cracking the case wide open, but at what cost?
The Matt Ruskin penned and directed feature will also land on Star+ in Latin America and Disney+ under the Star banner on March 17. For those who can’t get enough true crime, ABC Audio will be preparing fans for the Keira Knightley-led film with a three-part companion podcast. You can feast your ears on that wherever you listen to podcasts just before the film’s debut.
Boston Strangler marks Keira Knightley’s return to the big screen after taking this past year off. In 2021, her voice could be heard in Éric Warin and Tahir Rana’s animated biographical feature Charlotte as well as Camille Griffin’s black comedy holiday flick, Silent Night. Beyond her turn as the journalist who breaks the Boston Strangler’s case wide open, nothing has been lined up for the two-time Academy Award-nominated actress, although she may be in talks to reprise her role for another Pirates of the Caribbean film.
A hotly debated case that’s led to a slew of conspiracy theories, the killings committed by the so-called “Boston Strangler,” later to be named Albert DeSalvo, took place in and around the Massachusetts city in the early 1960s. By the time the killings ended, 13 murders would be attributed to the serial killer. While it’s unclear as to how far the Keira Knightley-led series will take the investigation, DNA evidence in 2013 proved that at least one of the slayings was not caused by DeSalvo, leading many to question how many attackers were actually involved.
As big a year for true crime as any, 2022 saw the arrival of dramatized retellings like Ryan Murphy’s Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story and Peacock’s A Friend of the Family, both of which saw sky-high ratings and viewership numbers. With this in mind, it’s our guess that audiences will flock to another scripted retelling of one of America’s most notorious killers. You can see Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon take on the case of the Boston Strangler when the film hits Hulu on March 17.
