This week, Olivia Wilde’s psychological thriller Don’t Worry Darling is dropping in Philippine cinemas!
Set in the ’50s, the film stars Florence Pugh and Harry Styles as the couple Alice and Jack who live in the idealized community of Victory, which is owned by a mysterious company.
Home to the families of the men who work for the company’s top-secret project, Victory is a tight-knit utopia where the people’s daily lives are influenced by the CEO, Frank (Chris Pine), who also serves as a life coach for the community. But when Alice begins to see cracks in their idyllic life, she sets out to discover the truth behind Victory and its sinister secrets.
Before Don’t Worry Darling hits theaters this week, we’ve rounded up a few facts about the movie from behind the scenes. Check them out below.
1. Olivia Wilde is back in the director’s chair.
Before being credited as a director, Olivia Wilde is an actress who starred in movies like The Lazarus Effect and TRON: Legacy. She made her directorial debut in 2019 with the teen comedy flick Booksmart, making Don’t Worry Darling her second feature film as the director. Wilde also stars in the thriller as Bunny, Alice’s best friend.
2. There were multiple bidders for Wilde’s script.
According to Deadline, there were 15 to 18 bidders who wanted to secure Wilde’s script with budgets of around $20M. Included in the lineup of studios that joined the bidding war were Netflix, MGM, Village Roadshow Pictures, Apple, and Universal-based Blumhouse. In the end, New Line Cinema, known for The Conjuring, IT, and the Final Destination franchises secured the rights for the film.
3. Shia Labeouf almost starred as Jack.
Harry Styles was initially meant to play Jack, but due to conflicts with his touring schedule, the role almost landed on Shia Labeouf of Transformers fame. But in an interview with Variety, Wilde said she let go of Labeouf because his process “seems to require a combative energy, and I don’t personally believe that is conducive to the best performances.”
Meanwhile, Labeouf denied this in an email to Variety, saying the reason was the lack of rehearsal time. In the end, Styles was cast again to play the lead role opposite Pugh.
4. Florence Pugh on her sex scenes with Harry Styles in the trailer.
In the same interview, director Wilde had been vocal about the importance of depicting female pleasure in sex scenes between a heterosexual couple, because “in hetero sex scenes in film, the focus on men as the recipients of pleasure is almost ubiquitous.”
But with the crowd’s attention being directed to the sex scenes between Pugh and Styles when the trailer dropped, Pugh has this to say in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar: “When it’s reduced to your sex scenes, or to watch the most famous man in the world go down on someone, it’s not why we do it. It’s not why I’m in this industry. Obviously, the nature of hiring the most famous pop star in the world, you’re going to have conversations like that. That’s just not what I’m going to be discussing because [this movie is] bigger and better than that. And the people who made it are bigger and better than that.”
5. Harry Styles created Alice’s “trigger song” in just 5 minutes.
In the same interview between Variety and director Wilde, the latter revealed that the seemingly romantic yet creepy song featured in the film was written by Harry Styles. In the script, it was only referred to as Alice’s “trigger song” and when the singer and actor asked about it, Wilde revealed to him that there was no specific song yet. Styles then offered to pen it himself.
“Five minutes later, he sent me a demo from his piano, and it was what ended up in the film. He called me and said, ‘What about this?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s it. That’s it. And that’s really insane that you did that in five minutes’,” said Wilde.
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Don’t Worry Darling opens in cinemas nationwide this Wednesday, September 28. Book your seats in advance and buy your tickets here.
