From left to right, Tony Hale, Anna Kendrick and Daniel Zovatto in “Woman of the Hour.” Photo by Leah Gallo/Netflix

As soon as she read the script, Anna Kendrick knew she wanted to make “Woman of the Hour.”

Written by Ian McDonald, it’s based on the true story of serial killer Rodney Alcala, who – before being caught – was a contestant on “The Dating Game” in 1978. The show featured a “bachelorette” asking blind questions of three men, and then picking one for a date.

It was only after she agreed to star in the film that Kendrick, a Portland native, learned McDonald was also a Mainer. He’d grown up just one town away from her, in Scarborough, and is around the same age. By then they had connected as writer and actor, working toward the same creative vision, though they did spend time discovering their shared Maine connections, including the community theaters and acting camps they both went to.

“Woman of the Hour” debuts on Netflix Oct. 18 and is McDonald’s first major screenwriting credit. Kendrick has one of the starring roles and is making her debut as a director. Kendrick, whose resume includes a 2010 Oscar nomination for “Up in the Air” and prominent roles in the “Twilight” and “Pitch Perfect” series, said her belief in the script is what prompted her to pitch herself as director. At that point, there was no director signed on and Kendrick wanted to make sure the film got made.

“I couldn’t believe how emotional the script was. It is a very well-executed thriller, but I think that Ian brought so much beauty and emotionality to it,” said Kendrick, on a conference call with McDonald in September to promote the film. “It felt really powerful and emotionally resonant. I just loved it.”

McDonald, 40, has been in Los Angeles since around 2013, selling scripts for TV and film projects and teaching writing at Loyola Marymount University, but “Woman of the Hour” is his first major film writing credit. McDonald says that he’s proud of other things he’s written – including scripts that got sold but never got made – but he knows that “Woman of the Hour” could be a turning point in his career.

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“Nothing else I’ve done has moved the needle career-wise, like this already has in a really big way,” said McDonald, referring to his increased name recognition and credibility as a writer in Hollywood. “At 40 years old, my career is finally where I’ve been wanting to be since I was 15 years old and making zombie movies in my backyard.”

Ian McDonald, who grew up in Scarborough and went to Cheverus High School in Portland, wrote the script for the movie “Woman of the Hour.” Photo courtesy of Julia Max

While the film focuses on Alcala’s appearance on “The Dating Game” in 1978, it also shows him luring victims and potential victims before and after the show. Kendrick plays Cheryl Bradshaw, an aspiring actress who went on that episode – the one where Alcala was one of three bachelors – to try to boost her career. Alcala, who was convicted of  seven murders committed in the 1970s, is played in the film by Daniel Zovatto, one of the stars of the Showtime fantasy series “Penny Dreadful: City of Angels.”

NO ROAD MAP

McDonald grew up in Scarborough and went to Cheverus High School in Portland, graduating in 2002. His mom, Heidi McDonald, owns a childcare center and his father, Michael McDonald, is a retired property manager. Until he got to high school, McDonald spent a lot of his time playing sports – basketball, baseball and soccer. He says he played partially because his father had been a college athlete. Then while considering trying out for football in high school, he started thinking more about how much he’d like to try some artistic pursuits.

After talking to his father and mother, he decided to quit sports and “pivot” to art. At one point, he wanted to be a comic book artist, then began making small films with friends. Because he didn’t know of anyone from Maine working in Hollywood, he began studying up on regional filmmakers who made films where they lived. It gave him hope that he could find filmmakers who were working but not living in Hollywood or New York.

As for his interest in writing, McDonald did have a role model to follow in Maine: Stephen King.

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“It’s probably not super surprising, but Stephen King had a massive impact on me growing up. Not just because of the stories he told but because he showed that you could be from Maine, have no direct connections to film or publishing, and still make a life for yourself as a writer,” said McDonald. “For the first couple years after moving to Los Angeles, I got very homesick and would reread his books to take the sting off. ‘Salem’s Lot’ and ‘Pet Sematary,’ in particular. Besides being terrifying novels, they’re also really beautiful, evocative depictions of Maine.”

After graduating from Cheverus, McDonald went on to study film at DeSales University in Pennsylvania. He transferred to Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, where he became an English major. Because of the cost of equipment needed to make a film, he decided to focus on writing scripts, because all he would need is a laptop. He then got a master’s degree in playwriting from Brown University in Rhode Island and also taught at the Ivy League institution before moving back to Los Angeles. He’s been writing plays and film scripts ever since. He also taught for about five years at Loyola Marymount before concentrating on writing full time.

A scene from “Woman of the Hour.” Photo by Leah Gallo/Netflix

WRITING ON SPEC 

McDonald says he’s always been interested in thrillers and true crime stories, so when he read about Alcala, his crimes and his TV show appearance, he thought it was great fodder for a script. He wrote it “on spec,” meaning without financing or any guarantee it would get made, starting about eight years ago, then shopped it around to various production companies. It took about four years before BoulderLight Pictures, the lead creative company on the project, decided to take it on.  About two years ago, the film was shot, mostly in Vancouver, Canada, and was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2023.

Both Kendrick and McDonald say there were some challenges to writing a script and making a film based on horrific things that happened to real people. There were parts of the story where no court documents or recordings or witness accounts exist, so the filmmakers say they tried to “get to the emotional truth” of the story in whatever fictions were created.

Alcala was still alive when McDonald started his research and writing. He died in prison in 2021 at the age of 77, after being sentenced to death in 1980.

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Alcala’s story, including how he was able to go on a nationally syndicated TV show undetected in the middle of his killing spree, has been written about and was the subject of a TV movie on the Investigation Network in 2017. But his story has never been told in a “big way” before McDonald’s script for “Woman of the Hour,” said Tracy Rosenblum, BoulderLight Pictures’ vice president of development and production and a producer on the film.

Rosenblum said that, while the story itself is shocking and fascinating, McDonald’s script enhanced it in powerful and insightful ways.

“I think the fact that he approached it from the perspective of the women and other people who interacted with Rodney over the years, it was a new way of telling the story that still felt very authentic,” said Rosenblum. “The script sheds light, not just on who this one person was, but what were the systems and what were the social norms that allowed him to thrive at the time.”

The film is emotional, respectful of the victims and also entertaining, Rosenblum says – a combination that’s hard to achieve. Rosenblum said she found McDonald to be collaborative but confident in his work, too.

“He’s a very smart guy, and he’s also just a lovely, sweet human being,” said Rosenblum. “I’m very excited for this movie to be out in the world and for other people to see the talent he has. I can’t wait to see what he does next.”

Ian McDonald, who grew up in Scarborough, is a screenwriter now living in the Los Angeles area. Photo courtesy of Julia Max

As for potential future projects, McDonald said he’s been trying to adapt Stephen King’s short story “Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut.” He’d also love to have one of his scripts shot in Maine. He did write a murder mystery set in Maine for Amazon, but it never got made.

Even though his career in Hollywood has taken hold, he says he still needs to come back to Maine periodically to “detox” from the pace and drama of life in Los Angeles. He lives in a fairly quieter part of Greater Los Angeles, in the San Fernando Valley, with his wife, Julia Max.

“Maine is a state that is good for the soul, and the quietness allows me to hear my own thoughts in a way that is more difficult in Los Angeles,” McDonald said.

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