Fans of the Happy Death Day franchise will know that they feature two major sources of appeal: A delightfully high-concept effort to apply Groundhog Day style storytelling to the venerable slasher genre, and star Jessica Rothe. As temporally doomed sorority sister Tree, Rothe managed to both ground and elevate what could otherwise be a pair of very silly movies, embracing both their slapstick elements, as well as their occasional swings for actual emotional depth.
Now Rothe has signed on for something altogether darker than mere infinitely repeating murders, with Deadline noting that she’s joined the cast of Gillian Flynn’s Utopia. A remake of a stylishly violent British series about the nested layers of conspiracies surrounding an apparently prophetic comic book, the series has been one of Flynn’s old pal David Fincher’s pet projects for going on five years now, since back when he was still developing it at HBO. Now it’s made the move over to Amazon, where Rothe will star opposite John Cusack and Rainn Wilson as Samantha, an idealist and activist hoping to use the mysterious Utopia manuscript to change the world for the better. From what we’ve seen of the original series, that’s probably not going to work out, but it’s still great to see Rothe get some mainstream attention after anchoring two of our favorite goofy delights of the last few years.