Amazon MGM Studios Picks Up Chris McKay Serial Killer Romance Package ‘Butcher & Blackbird’; Emma Laird & Thomas Doherty To Star

EXCLUSIVE: Lyrical Media and Embrace have sold feature package Butcher & Blackbird, a dark romance based on the bestselling novel by Brynne Weaver, to Amazon MGM Studios, for release worldwide on Prime Video.

Chris McKay, the filmmaker who directed Amazon’s Chris Pratt sci-fi actioner The Tomorrow War, is set to direct. Emma Laird (War) and Thomas Doherty (Paradise) will star.

Script is by Laura Kosann with revisions by Ari Berkowitz and Ava Tramer. Lyrical Media’s Alexander Black and Embrace will produce. Weaver and McKay will exec produce alongside Lyrical Media’s Arlen Konopaki, Jon Rosenberg, and Jonathan Faust.

The first installment of Ruinous Love, a #1 New York Times bestselling trilogy from Weaver, Butcher & Blackbird follows two competing killers who target other serial killers as they attempt to one up each other. As their unlikely bond grows into something deeper, they start to wonder if a future together could ever be possible.

Published in October 2023, the book was a New York Times, USA Today, and Publisher’s Weekly bestseller that went viral on BookTok. Weaver’s books have been sold in over 25 countries with over five million copies sold to date.

English actress Laird is coming off of 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple and the BBC series Mint, for which she was nominated for a BAFTA Scotland for Best Actress. Upcoming, she has Apple TV’s Neuromancer, Season 2 of HBO’s War, A24’s Elden Ring, The Housekeeper alongside Helena Bonham Carter, and Cary Joji Fukunaga’s Blood on Snow. She is repped by United Agents, manager Dara Gordon, CAA, and Yorn, Levine, Barnes.

Doherty is a Scottish actor who can currently be seen starring in Hulu’s Paradise. Past TV credits include Tell Me Lies, Gossip Girl, Girls5eva, High Fidelity and Catherine the Great. He is repped by Anonymous Content, Gersh, and Peikoff Mahan.

McKay is also known for his work on the Lego film series, including as director of The Lego Batman Movie, and for the Uni vampire comedy Renfield starring Nicolas Cage and Nicholas Hoult. He is repped by UTA, Rise Management, and Yorn Levine.

Currently adapting Ali Hazelwood’s novel Deep End for Netflix with 21 Laps and Unwell producing, Kosann is repped by CAA, Untitled, and Sloane, Offer, Weber & Dern.

Lyrical Media’s upcoming film slate includes Osgood Perkins’ The Young People for Paramount Primal. Their animation arm is producing Bloodborne alongside PlayStation Productions and creator Seán McLoughlin (aka JackSepticEye), with Lyrical Media co-financing alongside Sony Pictures. Additionally, Lyrical Animation will produce a feature adaptation of Godslap, the comic created by YouTuber and streamer Charlie “MoistCr1TiKaL” White.

Credits for Embrace (formerly Ryder Picture Company) include Dumb Money, Bruiser, I Love Boosters, the Netflix romantic comedy Office Romance, and A24 releases The Death of Robin Hood and Onslaught. They’re currently in post on Shiver starring Keanu Reeves for Warner Bros. and Mother’s Helper, starring Shailene Woodley.

Berkowitz and Tramer are repped by Artists First and Ginsburg Daniels Kallis. Berkowitz is also repped by CAA.