Amazon MGM Studios has acquired Butcher and Blackbird for worldwide release on Prime Video, with Chris McKay set to direct and Emma Laird and Thomas Doherty attached to star. The move turns Brynne Weaver’s bestselling dark romance into a studio-backed feature with global streaming reach.
Prime Video Gets the Package
Lyrical Media and Embrace sold the feature package, which gives Amazon MGM Studios control of the adaptation and its rollout on Prime Video. That is the practical shift here: the project has moved from a bestselling book with franchise potential into a finished development package with a platform attached.
Laura Kosann wrote the script, with revisions by Ari Berkowitz and Ava Tramer. Alexander Black and Embrace will produce, while Brynne Weaver and Chris McKay will executive produce, putting the author and director in the same oversight lane as the studio.
Emma Laird After Mint
Emma Laird arrives on the project after 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple and the series Mint, for which she was nominated for BAFTA Scotland for Best Actress. Casting her opposite Doherty gives Amazon MGM Studios a lead pair with recent television and feature momentum rather than a blank-slate unknowns package.
Thomas Doherty is currently seen in Hulu’s Paradise, and his addition keeps the film squarely in the young-adult-to-adult crossover lane that has fueled much of the book’s audience. Weaver’s books have sold in over 25 countries and more than five million copies to date, so the studio is not building around a niche title.
Brynne Weaver’s Ruinous Love
Butcher and Blackbird, published in October 2023, is the first installment of Weaver’s Ruinous Love series and became a New York Times,, and Publisher’s Weekly bestseller. The novel’s hook is blunt: two competing killers target other serial killers while trying to one-up each other. That dark-romance premise is exactly the kind of material that can travel online and still fit a mainstream streamer when the audience is already there.
The open question is the one the deal does not answer: when this adaptation starts shooting or reaches Prime Video. For now, Amazon MGM Studios has the rights, McKay has the chair, and the cast is in place; the next move belongs to the production plan, not the publicity cycle.
