Josh Hartnett and Dakota Johnson on March 12, 2025. Photo:
Aeon/GC Images
Dakota Johnson is off to a bloody start filming her upcoming role in a Colleen Hoover adaptation.
On Wednesday, March 12, the actress, 35, was photographed with fake blood splattered on her face and clothes while filming a scene with Josh Hartnett for Verity in New York City.
Johnson appeared to depict a scene from the book involving a car accident with a cyclist. Hartnett, 46, in character as Jeremy Crawford, arrives in the scene as he and Johnson’s character Lowen Ashleigh cross a street together after the incident.
Verity also stars Anne Hathaway. PEOPLE confirmed that Hathaway had joined the movie back in November 2024, as well as news that Hathaway would work on the film as a producer alongside director Michael Showalter, whom she previously worked with on 2024’s The Idea of You.
Hathaway, 42, and Hartnett were previously seen filming Verity together in N.Y.C. in February, when they were photographed running through the streets as they held hands while dressed in semi-formal attire.
Dakota Johnson on March 12, 2025. TheStewartofNY/GC Images
Verity is the 18th book published by author Hoover. It originally hit shelves in 2018, two years after her breakout novel It Ends With Us published.
Hathaway portrays the movie’s title character, a bestselling author, while Johnson’s Lowen is a struggling writer who is given the “job offer of a lifetime” from Verity’s husband Jeremy (Hartnett) to help finish Verity’s successful series after a “mysterious accident” leaves Verity herself unable to write, per a synopsis.
Anne Hathaway ; ‘Verity’ by Colleen Hoover. Cindy Ord/Getty Images ; Grand Central Publishing
“Upon arrival at the lavish Crawford estate, Lowen slowly learns that things are not exactly as they seem with the discovery of a secret, unfinished manuscript that may divulge chilling admissions about the family’s past,” the synopsis reads.
“As Lowen ingratiates herself with Jeremy and his young son Crew, she must discern if Verity’s writings are merely lurid works of fiction or an ominous warning by a deranged psychopath.”
Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett on March 12, 2025. Aeon/GC Images
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The project is the second of Hoover’s novels to receive a big-screen adaptation. It Ends With Us, which starred Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, proved a major success with audiences at the box office when it released in August 2024. “Excited is an understatement,” Hoover wrote of news regarding Johnson and Hartnett’s casting in a December 2024 Instagram post.
