This article contains spoilers for Verity.
The transition from page to screen naturally meant that some tweaks had to be made when adapting the new erotic thriller Verity.
What you might not realise, though, is that Verity author Colleen Hoover previously penned a “bonus chapter” that would have completely changed her story’s ending.
Colleen originally released Verity as her third novel in 2018, and four years later, unveiled a new version that included an epilogue, moving the story six months into the future.
In this extra passage, included in a 2022 special edition of the book, Lowen and Jeremy have welcomed a baby daughter, Nova, and relocated to the beach.
This bonus chapter also leans into the “Team Letter” narrative of Jeremy being a killer, as he’s seen murdering a former friend of his and Verity’s in a bid to stop their past from resurfacing.
Ultimately, when it came to the movie version of Verity, Colleen preferred to keep things more open-ended, and not include this bonus detail.
“I didn’t want to include the bonus chapter,” she told Entertainment Weekly earlier this month. “To me, that was just a bonus for readers.”
She added that while the additional chapter was “a fun thing to write”, she still “really [likes] where the book ends originally”, and felt that was a better way to bring the movie version to an end.
Reviews for the movie – directed by Michael Showalter, who previously worked with Anne on The Idea Of You – were generally positive, and it was a hit at the box office, beating Tom Cruise’s much-hyped dystopian drama Digger in its opening weekend.
Verity is in cinemas now.
