Why Colleen Hoover's 'Verity' Needed a Campier Adaptation

It Was A Book First

Sophie and Rudi dissect the Amazon MGM film adaptation of Colleen Hoover's psychological thriller Verity, starring Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson, and Josh

Key takeaways

• Colleen Hoover self-published Verity in 2018, and it later exploded in popularity through BookTok, cementing her status as a mainstream publishing powerhouse.
• The film adaptation was directed by Michael Showalter and written by Nick Antosca, with principal photography taking place between February and April 2025.

Main topics

• Film vs. Book adaptation differences
• Colleen Hoover's publishing history and BookTok phenomenon

Notable quotes

"I don't think this is a awful movie. I don't think this is a good movie. I think it's trash, but it's not like the worst trash that you've ever seen."

Conclusion

The episode offers a comprehensive breakdown of how Verity translates from page to

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:09) I'm Sophie and I love books. Speaker 1 (0:11) I'm Rudy and I love movies. And this is It Was a Book First, the podcast about new book-to-screen adaptations. Today, we're discussing Call Her Daddy and Hot Ones. Just kidding. We're talking about Verity, a movie that does prominently feature Alex Cooper and Sean Evans hosting their shows. The twisty psychological thriller adapts Colleen Hoover's 2018 novel with stars Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson, and Josh Hartnett. Speaker 2 (0:38) If you're new here, Rudy and I are culture reporters. And on this podcast, we discuss the page to screen adaptations that everyone's talking about. I read the book. We both watch the TV show or movie. And then we dissect the differences and what we thought of the new adaptation. And yes, that means there are going to be a lot of spoilers throughout this for both versions of Verity. Speaker 1 (0:57) Next week, we're discussing an actually scary movie. Other Mommy, which adapts Josh Mallerman's 2024 novel, Incidents Around the House. I'm holding it up here. The film, which stars Jessica Chastain, Jay Duplass, and Arabella Olivia Clark, opens in theaters this weekend. Speaker 2 (1:16) I Speaker 1 (1:16) am absolutely terrified to see this this weekend. Speaker 2 (1:19) A reminder to like, rate, review, and subscribe wherever you get podcasts. Follow us on Instagram at itwasabookfirstpod. Watch this episode on YouTube at itwasabookfirstpodcast or visit our website at itwasabookfirst.com. Have a question for us or want to reach out about something? Email us at itwasabookfirstpod at gmail.com. Speaker 1 (1:38) Before we dive into the Hooververse, Sophie, your background looks a little different today. Speaker 2 (1:45) My background definitely looks a little different. I did move about a week ago, which is very exciting. Yes, my new podcast background for our YouTube viewers is still pending. So I am just sitting in the middle of a large room. Speaker 1 (1:59) Well, I know you're a big consumer of audiobooks. So did you listen to any audiobooks not for the show to get you through your packing and unpacking? Speaker 2 (2:10) Yes, I did a lot of listening for this show, but I also listened to London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe. Speaker 1 (2:16) Oh, I've heard great things about this. Yeah, Speaker 2 (2:18) he is one of my absolute favorite narrative nonfiction writers. He is a writer for The New Yorker. You might have read some of his other books, Empire of Pain, which is about the Sackler dynasty, the family who invented Oxycontin. That is a really, really maddening book that was turned into several series adaptations. Speaker 2 (2:39) There were like a couple like big opioid shows. I forget exactly when those came out. But his book, Say Nothing, which was about the troubles in Northern Ireland, was turned into, I believe, an FX Hulu series. And I am sure that London Falling will be turned into a miniseries as well. It is about a young man who dies in the River Thames in London. And it's really a story about Russian oligarchs. and this like hidden web of money in the UK. It is, I mean, I listened to it in like a day and a half packing. It reads like a fiction book, but it is narrative nonfiction. His reporting is, I Speaker 1 (3:18) mean, Speaker 2 (3:18) I Speaker 1 (3:19) don't know about you, Speaker 2 (3:19) Rudy. Like I have these authors where I'm like, oh, maybe one day I'll be like one 10th as thorough and amazing as a reporter. And he is one of them. So cannot recommend London Falling enough. Speaker 1 (3:31) Have you Speaker 2 (3:31) read any of those or been faced with any of his Speaker 1 (3:34) work? Speaker 2 (3:34) No, Speaker 1 (3:34) but I've Speaker 2 (3:34) heard of Speaker 1 (3:34) him and I know that he's like really acclaimed and that I probably should read some of his stuff. Yeah, Speaker 2 (3:39) highly rec. And I feel like you have been just like in concert madness these last couple of weeks. Speaker 1 (3:46) I had a very like uncharacteristic for me kind of concert week. And look, I think some listeners may know that like while I've been writing about TV and movies for my entire career, really been primarily. like a music writer when it comes to that, that side of what I do. How many concerts Speaker 2 (4:04) did you see last year? Not as many as in the Speaker 1 (4:07) past. I did about 70, probably be around 75 this year. Well, I've had years where it's a lot more. But this, this past week, I went to three shows all at the same place, all at Capital One Arena, three big pop shows that I promise you do tie into this podcast because. They all feature pop stars that either appear in or have music in page to screen, we'll say, adaptations, because one is not a book. Speaker 2 (4:37) So Speaker 1 (4:37) I'll start out just talking about the first show I went to last Monday on the 28th of September. So Charlie XCX, again, these are all at Capital One Arena in DC. So Charlie XCX made the soundtrack for Wuthering Heights, which some listeners will know is a... the first episode of this podcast we ever recorded, never to be released. Never. And also appeared in several other films this year. So she actually played two songs from the Wuthering Heights soundtrack. Not Chains of Love, which like should have been performed. And I'm sort of confused why it wasn't. But she did do House, which had like fireworks in the arena. It was so cool and so caught me off guard. like just fireworks shooting up above her. It's a really, really cool performance. This is a pretty big show for her and like honestly kind of comes close to the kind of show she mocked in her mockumentary, The Moment, which is kind of about staging like an era's tour-like Speaker 2 (5:40) concert. Speaker 1 (5:41) And this is like not quite that, but there's elements where I was like, does she like realize this a little bit? But fun show. She was maybe a little hungover from performing at the VMAs and partying with Madonna the night prior. So we'll just leave that there. Then on Tuesday, the very next night, I went on a total lark, very last minute kind of thing to go see Phoebe Bridgers at the same arena. So Phoebe Bridgers is in a movie called Primetime. which is the Lance Oppenheim's... She's in Speaker 2 (6:15) primetime? Speaker 1 (6:16) She is. So Lance Oppenheim's film about Chris Hansen and To Catch a Predator, which was a show that essentially lured sexual predators to meeting a young decoy. And Phoebe Bridgers plays one of the decoys. Oh my God, I had Speaker 2 (6:34) no idea. And Speaker 1 (6:35) also has a song called On Video that plays over the credits, which is kind of like a grungy rock song. And so this is based on an article. So technically not based on a book, but we'll count it. The movie that is. And she played on video during the show, which was really cool. One of my favorite performances. This show was no phones. So like just 20,000 people just like vibing like the good old days. Nice. Which was actually like. really cool. Like I look, I have no problem with people taking videos and photos at shows. I do it all the time, but there was something really nice about everyone just kind of like living in the moment and experiencing this thing all at the same time. So also you don't really know what the show looks like going in and she's got some really cool production stuff, a big band. It's a really fun show and she's great. And, um, and then I went to I think the biggest of the three on Sunday night, this was Olivia Rodrigo. So Speaker 2 (7:37) jealous. Now Speaker 1 (7:38) her song, The Cure, is in Practical Magic 2. It is also the centerpiece of and really the special effect of her show. She also wrote an original song for the last Hunger Games movie. So she's got some experience with the book to screen adaptations. This is just like a super fun show. Such a cool stage design. It's a really big open stage that is full of flowers. And then throughout the show, the flowers kind of get taken away as we move through different seasons. So each sort of like quarter of the show is divided into a season. And then the cure, which as I mentioned, is in Practical Magic 2, is really like the highlight. of the show. She's on a B stage wearing this like white dress made out of paper-like material. You may have seen this on social media. And then near the end of the song, it starts raining and her dress disintegrates to reveal like a red, maybe blood soaked, I don't know, dress under that. And it's a very cool moment. This show is just like... pure fun. It's really more of like a rock show than a pop show. She's got an all-female band, I think 10 people on stage at one point. And just like an absolute blast. I went with my wife, Lauren, and one of our friends from college, and we just had a great time. So yeah, I really recommend, if you can, they're all on tour right now. Go catch them if you can find tickets somehow. especially Olivia Rodrigo. A Speaker 2 (9:08) very casual, Speaker 1 (9:08) easy Speaker 2 (9:08) recommendation. I'll head on over to Ticketmaster for that one. Speaker 1 (9:13) I will say I was able to get Phoebe Bridger's tickets day of, so it is possible. They do some re-releases, so you might be able to get them. But yeah, uncharacteristic for me to go see like a bunch of pop girlies all in the same week. I also saw Sylvan Esso last night who has a song in Practical Magic 2. So it's a bit of an interesting run I've been on, but tomorrow. I actually returned back to my natural habitat because I'm traveling to Richmond, Virginia for a night to go see fish. So I contain multitudes. You sure Speaker 2 (9:43) do. I Speaker 1 (9:44) got to go back to my old men making improvised jam band music on stage. Speaker 2 (9:50) And talking about people who contain multitudes, the characters in this book. Speaker 1 (9:54) What a transition into Verity. So Verity stars Anne Hathaway as Verity Crawford. the writer of a famous thriller book series whose husband, played by Josh Hartnett, enlists a younger writer, Lo and Ashley, one of the many amazing names in this book and movie, played by Dakota Johnson to help Verity finish the popular series after a car accident leaves her unable to write. Sophie, before we dive into a little bit of the history of this book and movie, what'd you think of Verity, your first? Colleen Hoover experience. Also my first Colleen Hoover experience. Speaker 2 (10:36) Yeah. So I should say I am coming at this as we both are as Colleen Hoover virgins, which seems like kind of, I mean, for me as like a person who worked in publishing, like what a way to put it at this point. Like, wow, I was pure before this whole experience. No, I'm going to be really honest with you, Rudy. I came into this week expecting to be like, this was a horrible book. This was a horrible movie. I wasted my time. And I. Kind of had fun. Like, I don't, as I'm going to say a lot of times, like, I don't think either one's good or like well made, but I had a lot more fun this week than I had for the love hypothesis. I will say that. And so I'm really excited to kind of get into what I think works and doesn't work because I don't think that these are all bad in the way I was sort of expecting. Speaker 1 (11:26) Sure, sure. Yeah, I'm. I didn't read the book. I just watched the movie, although I heard about the book from my wife who did read the book and wants everyone to know it's the only Colleen Hoover book she's read and probably the only one she will read. She has seen the other movie adaptations, which we'll talk about in a minute. I thought it was okay. I don't think this is a awful movie. I don't think this is a good movie. I think it's trash, but it's not like the worst trash that you've ever seen. It's not quite as campy as it thinks it is. It Speaker 2 (12:04) should be. Or should be. It's not quite Speaker 1 (12:05) as funny as it should be. It's not as scary as it should be. It's not as erotic as it should be. It's just kind of there. And I think my guess is ultimately that the writing is what... kind of Speaker 2 (12:22) sullied this a bit. But Speaker 1 (12:25) let's talk a little bit about the Speaker 2 (12:26) source material. Yeah. So this is what we would call a psychological romantic thriller. You would ask me at one point, I think over text, like, oh, this is a romance. I was like, this is not a romance book. Like there is a romantic plot line and there's a lot of sex, but this is a fucked up. psychological romantic thriller. So this book is very interesting as a background. It was self-published by Colleen Hoover in 2018. She is really like a rags to riches story. She was working as a WIC counselor in Texas with three kids and a husband in a single wide trailer and started just writing. And her books kind of really found an audience through self-publishing. Her first book hit the New York Times bestseller list seven months after publication. on its own, which is really impressive. But ultimately, Verity and a lot of her other books have been republished by mainstream publishers. So this was republished in 2021 by Grand Central Publishing, which is part of Hachette. Colleen Hoover and this book, as the number one of all of them, really went viral on BookTok during the pandemic. So during COVID, Colleen Hoover just exploded in popularity. Do Speaker 1 (13:37) we Speaker 2 (13:37) know why? Speaker 2 (13:39) Her books are very polarizing. They have very controversial characters. They have big plot twists and cliffhangers and things. But the Speaker 1 (13:52) theme seems to be that these are about. women where something bad happens and maybe they fall in love. Maybe they don't. Speaker 1 (14:06) But there's always a bad thing that happens that's like tragic. And then maybe there's love at the end of the tunnel. Speaker 2 (14:14) Sure. I can't really think of the love plot line in this between the Speaker 1 (14:19) Dakota Johnson and the Josh Hartnett characters as Speaker 2 (14:22) anything. Speaker 1 (14:23) I mean, her Speaker 2 (14:24) books have sold tens of millions of copies. And I think that when people think about book talk and a... about the power of it. This is an author that very much gets lumped in as like the ultimate name. There are Colleen Hoover sections of bookstores at this point. These books. sell like hotcakes. And I think that part of what people react to in terms of judging the quality of the writing is like, why is something this sort of half-baked so popular? And I think that Colleen Hoover has sort of become a stand-in for a lot of the books that have become popular from BookTok. And to be clear, BookTok has also made like... classic novel. People are reading like the Master of Margarita right now. Like it's not all trash, but I do think that Colleen Hoover very much has become like a named stand in for what people sort of view as like the problem with a community like that being such a sales driver. And Speaker 1 (15:15) there's a little bit of a meta commentary on that in this film, which I enjoyed and actually thought was kind of clever. And so this, she spent really the last several years working on adaptations. of her books. So, you know, it ends with Speaker 2 (15:32) us, Speaker 1 (15:33) right? It ends with us. The one that of course is, Speaker 2 (15:36) it Speaker 1 (15:38) ends with us is of course the one that has spurred a huge, you know, spurred a huge lawsuit and so much controversy and was a huge hit and really broke, broke the Colleen Hoover cinematic universe open. Speaker 2 (15:48) It Ends With Us has been controversial for a really long time. I mean, there was an – which is about a story about domestic violence. Yes. And It Ends With Us had a coloring book. That was like the big scandal I remember was when Speaker 1 (15:59) – Speaker 2 (15:59) I did not know that. Whatever. I think St. Martin, whoever the publisher was for that one, released a – and they had to like take it down because people were like, you Speaker 1 (16:06) released a coloring book about a book about domestic violence? Like what are you talking about? Speaker 2 (16:10) Okay. So because women has always been – controversial. I think the depiction of the characters people view as controversial. And again, I think this is an example of like, these books don't matter unless they were this popular. No Speaker 1 (16:22) one would care if so many people weren't reading Speaker 2 (16:24) them, but there's a lot of people that these are like the only books they read. And so it's become a big cultural conversation in a way that I don't think it should all be put on Colleen Hoover, certainly. Sure. Speaker 1 (16:34) And so that was the big one. We got Regretting You last year. Earlier this year, we got Reminders of Him. Now we get Verity. There's also a very small series called Confess from 2017 that was really her first adaptation. And now that she's spent the last several years really working on adapting these books, she put out her first book in four years earlier this year called, I think it's Woman Down. She now says she's kind of taking a pause. from doing these adaptations to focus on finishing some other books. So we might have a little bit of a pause of the Colleen Hoover cinematic universe. If you've been loving these movies. Well, Speaker 2 (17:12) she's Speaker 1 (17:12) running out Speaker 2 (17:12) of Speaker 1 (17:12) books. I mean, we're Speaker 2 (17:13) going Speaker 1 (17:13) to Speaker 2 (17:13) hit Speaker 1 (17:13) the Speaker 2 (17:14) end of them eventually. Speaker 1 (17:15) Yeah, you're Speaker 2 (17:15) going Speaker 1 (17:15) to have to rewatch them until we get a new one. So this movie is directed by... Michael Showalter, this is an Amazon MGM film. We've mentioned Michael Showalter on this podcast a couple times when talking about this movie. He came up in The State, The Comedy Troupe, with Mike Lee and Black, Ken Marino, David Wayne. He co-starred in Wet Hot American Summer. His big break as a director was The Big Sick. He also has directed a couple of other adaptations, including The Idea of You in 2024 with Anne Hathaway. So they've worked together before. He also directed Spoiler Alert and then The Eyes of Tammy Faye, which is a documentary adaptation. He also directed several episodes of The Dropout, the Hulu Elizabeth Holmes series that I know you love, Sophie. Speaker 2 (18:02) Yeah, wow. Did not know that one. Speaker 1 (18:05) He Speaker 2 (18:05) is really, truly one of my favorite. I mean, Wet Hot American Summer is one of my all-time favorite movies. I did not realize he directed The Big Sick. Also, like, really up there for me. I mean, what a, what range this man has. What an odd Speaker 1 (18:18) career. This film was written by one of our really favorite writers to cover on this podcast, by which we mean absolutely not. Nick Antosca, who also wrote and show ran Cape Fear, a series that we did not like. Go listen to our episode with Roxanna Haddadi if you haven't. It's a really funny one. And Nick Antosca also co-wrote the movie Antlers, which is a horror film in 2021. So he was part of the team. the production team that was trying to develop Verity back in 2020. It went through several writers before he ultimately was credited with the version we saw on the screen. Anne Hathaway and Michael Showalter were announced in November of 2024. And then Josh Hartnett and Dakota Johnson