Two years. Two years of BookTok going absolutely feral over this casting. Two years of speculation, fan edits, and the author herself dropping cryptic hints about the script while the internet collectively held its breath.
Then, yesterday, Amazon MGM Studios dropped the news the entire fandom has been waiting for: Emma Laird is Sloane. Thomas Doherty is Rowan. And the Butcher & Blackbird movie is officially heading to Prime Video!
Amazon MGM Studios has acquired the feature package for Butcher & Blackbird, Brynne Weaver’s number one New York Times bestselling dark romcom, for worldwide release on Prime Video.
Emma Laird, known for “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” and “Mayor of Kingstown,” plays Sloane “Blackbird” Sutherland. Thomas Doherty, known for “Paradise” and “Tell Me Lies,” plays Rowan “The Boston Butcher” Kane.
The project has been in the works since June 2024. In December 2025, Weaver teased that the book’s notoriously explicit ice cream scene had made it into the script. The full package landing at Amazon MGM with cast confirmed is the announcement the fandom has been building toward for two years.
Who Is Brynne Weaver?
Before writing full-time, Weaver worked as a forensic archaeologist, an equestrian professional, and a specialist in neuroscience and pharmaceutical R&D. She grew up between Nova Scotia and Ontario, and published her first fantasy romance, The Diviner, in 2021. She wrote several more books before self-publishing Butcher & Blackbird in October 2023.
The response was immediate and overwhelming. BookTok discovered it and never let go. Creators from England to Australia posted reviews on TikTok, the sales exploded, and Weaver has since re-released the book through a publishing company.
She is now the number one New York Times and USA Today bestselling author and self-titled “Queen of Dark Romcom,” with more than five million copies of Butcher & Blackbird sold worldwide. The Ruinous Love Trilogy is complete, and she has since launched a second series, Seasons of Carnage, beginning with Tourist Season in 2025.
What Is Butcher & Blackbird About?
This is not a book for the faint-hearted, and the film almost certainly won’t be either. Weaver described dark romance to Rolling Stone in 2025 as “an exploration of trauma, darker themes, adult content, morally gray behaviors” — which is an accurate but incomplete description of what makes this book so specific and so addictive.
The official description captures the central premise:
When a chance encounter sparks an unlikely bond between rival murderers Sloane and Rowan, they find something elusive — the friendship of two like-minded, pitch-black souls who just happen to enjoy killing other serial killers. From small-town West Virginia to upscale California, and from downtown Boston to rural Texas, the two hunters collide in an annual game of blood and suffering, one that pits them against the most dangerous monsters in the country. But as their friendship develops into something more, the restless ghosts left in their wake are only a few steps behind, ready to claim more than just their newfound love.
The novel is equal parts extremely dark and extremely funny. That balance, dark comedy threaded through genuine menace, is what Weaver pioneered as a genre approach and what makes the book so genuinely difficult to describe to someone who hasn’t read it.
The Washington Post called it a book that “gnaws at you like a mental puzzle.” The fact that it has sold five million copies almost entirely through reader-to-reader recommendations shows how effectively it works on its intended audience.
The Cast That Has Everyone Talking
Fans have been fan-casting Sloane and Rowan since the movie was first announced in 2024, and the actual casting choices aren’t what most people predicted. That makes them considerably more interesting.
Emma Laird is a British actress best known for her role in Mayor of Kingstown and for 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. She brings an intensity and a physical presence to her roles that should suit Sloane, who is quietly lethal beneath a deceptively ordinary surface.
Thomas Doherty is a Scottish actor and singer who rose to wider attention through Gossip Girl and has since appeared in Tell Me Lies and Paradise. His charisma and easy charm are exactly what a character like Rowan requires — someone who can be completely charming and completely terrifying in the same scene without the transition feeling jarring.
The chemistry between them is something the internet will obsess over for the next year, using every available still and promotional image. For a romance built on competitive violence and the gradual realization that neither wants to kill the other, that chemistry needs to be convincing on both levels at once.
The Creative Team
Chris McKay is directing the film, which is being described as a dark rom-com rather than a straight thriller. McKay’s credits include The Lego Batman Movie, Renfield, and The Tomorrow War. His experience with tonally complex material that blends comedy with genuine darkness makes him a thoughtful choice for a story that absolutely requires both registers to work.
Laura Kosann wrote the screenplay and is also currently adapting Ali Hazelwood’s Deep End for Netflix. Ari Berkowitz and Ava Tramer handled revisions.
Brynne Weaver was visibly thrilled when Kosann delivered the completed script, posting a photo of it on Instagram with the caption: “We are SO EXCITED for the next steps, and we can’t wait to take you on this journey with us!”
Read It Before Sloane and Rowan Find You
Butcher & Blackbird is available now, along with the rest of the Ruinous Love Trilogy: Leather & Lark and Scythe & Sparrow. The trilogy is complete, so you can read all three back-to-back before the film arrives.
Go in warned: this is adult content with significant violence, dark themes, and explicit material throughout. If any of that isn’t for you, this book isn’t for you. If it is, you are about to understand exactly why five million people have recommended it to someone else.
More Book Adaptations: