“Don’t Worry Darling” is the second feature film by director Olivia Wilde. The film premiered at the 79th Venice Film Festival.
So let’s dive into some trivia and facts about the new film.
- “Don’t Worry Darling” is a 2022 American psychological thriller film
- It is directed by Olivia Wilde
- From a screenplay by Katie Silberman
- The film is based on a story by Carey Van Dyke, Shane Van Dyke and Silberman
- The film stars Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, Wilde, Gemma Chan, KiKi Layne, Nick Kroll, and Chris Pine
- “Don’t Worry Darling” had its world premiere at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on September 5, 2022
- It is scheduled to be released in the United States on September 23, 2022, by Warner Bros. Pictures
- Alice and Jack Chambers are a young, happy couple in the 1950s, living in the seemingly perfect company town of Victory, California, which has been created and paid for by the mysterious company Jack is working for
- Curious about the nature of her husband’s work on the secret “Victory Project” begins to consume Alice while cracks begin to form in their utopian life as her investigation into the project raises tensions within the community
- The film was announced in August 2019, after a bidding war amongst eighteen studios to acquire the next Olivia Wilde-directed project
- New Line Cinema later won the auction
- The original spec script was written by the brothers Carey and Shane Van Dyke
- The screenplay appeared on the 2019 Black List
- Katie Silberman was brought on to do a rewrite which became the film’s screenplay
- In April 2020, Florence Pugh, Shia LaBeouf and Chris Pine were added to the cast of the film,[11] with Dakota Johnson joining the next month
- Wilde was originally set to play Pugh’s part and Pugh was to play Wilde’s, but they swapped roles when Wilde decided she wanted a younger couple at the center of the film
- In September 2020, Harry Styles joined the cast of the film, replacing LaBeouf
- In October 2020, Gemma Chan and KiKi Layne were added to the cast
- With Layne replacing Johnson who dropped out due to a scheduling conflict with The Lost Daughter (2021)
- That same month, Sydney Chandler, Nick Kroll, Douglas Smith, Kate Berlant, Asif Ali, Timothy Simons, and Ari’el Stachel joined the cast of the film
- Principal photography began in Los Angeles on October 26, 2020
- It was temporarily halted for two weeks on November 4 after a crew member tested positive for COVID-19
- This resulted in stars Pugh, Styles and Pine being quarantined
- Filming wrapped on February 13, 2021
- The film’s original score was composed by John Powell
- The opening scene of the movie was filmed at The Kaufmann House
- It was the first film to be shot at the home
- Wilde was inspired by the house’s architecture and hung a photograph of the house on her wall while she was working on the script of the film.
- In 2021, it was reported that LaBeouf had been fired by Wilde over poor behavior and clashing with the cast and crew
- However, LaBeouf refuted these claims in August 2022, stating that he quit the film despite Wilde’s efforts to keep him onboard
- He provided Variety with evidence to support his claims, including a video recording from Wilde addressed to him
- Wilde and Pugh allegedly clashed on set, leading to tensions during both production and promotion for the film
- This included Pugh limiting the amount of promotion she would do for the film
- Although scheduling conflicts with filming Dune: Part Two have also been cited as a contributing factor
- At the CinemaCon 2022 for the stage at Caesars Palace, Wilde confirmed that the idea of the film was inspired by Inception, The Matrix, and The Truman Show
- The trailer, which was also shown at CinemaCon, was released online on May 2, 2022
- A teaser poster was released on June 16, 2022
- And a second trailer was released on July 21, 2022
- David Christopherson of MovieWeb called the poster “unsettling”
- Writing on trailer, Valerie Ettenhofer of /Film said Don’t Worry Darling looks like a “full-blown horror movie”, noting the mystery surrounding its plot and The Stepford Wives overtones
- The official release poster was released on August 11, 2022
- “Don’t Worry Darling” had its world premiere at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on September 5, 2022, and will also screen at the 48th Deauville American Film Festival and the 70th San Sebastián International Film Festival
- It is scheduled to be theatrically released on September 23, 2022
- It is eligible to become available on HBO Max and/or premium video on demand 45 days after its theatrical release, under a plan announced by WarnerMedia in 2021
- Though subsequent announcements by new parent company Warner Bros. Discovery suggest that streaming timing will be considered on a “case-by-case” basis going forward
- On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Don’t Worry Darling holds an approval rating of 45%
- Based on 20 reviews
- With an average of 5.6/10
- On Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, the film holds a score of 49 out of 100 based on 21 reviews
- Indicating “mixed or average reviews”
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