‘Boston Strangler’ movie adds 3 more stars to its cast, begins filming next month

Filming will begin in the Boston area on Dec. 6.

The upcoming "Boston Strangler" movie has added Chris Cooper, Alessandro Nivola, and Carrie Coon to the cast. Angela Weiss/AFP; Matt Licari/Invision/AP; Evan Agostini/Invision/AP

By Kevin Slane

November 17, 2021

20th Century Studios has added 3 more stars to its upcoming “Boston Strangler” movie, which will begin filming in the Boston area next month.

Kingston resident Chris Cooper (“Little Women”), Boston native Alessandro Nivola (“The Many Saints of Newark”), and Carrie Coon (“Gone Girl”) will join star Keira Knightley (“Pirates of the Caribbean”) in the film, according to a source familiar with the production.

“Back to where I was born,” Nivola wrote on Twitter, reacting to the news.

Directed by Matt Ruskin (“Crown Heights”), “Boston Strangler” will begin filming in the Boston area on December 6, with scenes to be shot both in Boston proper and nearby towns including Belmont, Braintree, Lowell, Lynn, and Malden.

“Boston Strangler” will tell the story of Loretta McLaughlin (Knightley), a reporter who first connected the dots between a series of murders in Boston in the 1960s while working at the Boston Record American.

McLaughlin, along with fellow Record American reporter Jean Cole, wrote a four-part series about the murders and first gave the killer the “Boston Strangler” moniker. McLaughlin later became the editorial page editor at The Boston Globe.

“Boston Strangler” will become at least the fourth movie about the infamous murders. The most notable of them, released in 1968, starred Tony Curtis (“Some Like It Hot”), Henry Fonda (“On Golden Pond”), and George Kennedy (“Cool Hand Luke”).