Anna Kendrick To Star in RODNEY & SHERYL a True Story About a Serial Killer Who Won a Date on THE DATING GAME
Netflix has picked up the Black List script for an interesting new film project titled Rodney & Sheryl. The film tells the true story of the time that a “serial killer competed on and won a date on the popular TV game show The Dating Game. The killer, Rodney Alcala, was in the midst of a killing spree in 1978 when he brazenly took part in the show.”
Anna Kendrick stars in the movie as Cheryl Bradshaw, the contestant who ended up choosing Alcala as her date. Chloe Okuno is set to direct the film, which will revolve around the events of the game show. You can actually watch part of the game show in a video I embedded below. It’s actually really weird to watch, especially with some of the things that Alcala says in answer to questions he’s asked.
It’s explained that during the time of the filming of The Dating Game episode, “Alcala had murdered five women and been convicted of the attempted murder of a 12-year-old girl, but he made it onto the show because background checks were more lax. That left Bradshaw in a position where she was supposed to go on a chaperoned date with Alcala, only to find she was put off by his odd vibe.”
He was eventually arrested and in 1980, he was sentenced to death for a murder and “investigators found evidence — hundreds of photos of women, girls and boys, and keepsakes police believed were from victims — in a storage locker. While he would appeal several times, when advances in DNA were made, he was tied to more murders.”
His execution was postponed indefinitely when California declared a moratorium on death penalty cases in 2019, and Alcala is now serving his time in state prison in Corcoran, CA. Detectives estimate that he may have killed as many as 130 people.
Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, and this seems like it’ll make for a good and interesting movie.
Source: Deadline