Courteney Cox premieres true-crime drama Evil Genius at TIFF

Courteney Cox has premiered her second feature film as a director, the true-crime drama Evil Genius, at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The film dramatises the 2003 “pizza bomber” heist in the United States that ended with the death of delivery driver Brian Wells, according to Deadline. It is written by Courtenay Miles and adapted from the four-part 2018 Netflix docuseries of the same name. The running time is 1 hour 34 minutes.

Patricia Arquette plays Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, David Harbour plays Bill Rothstein and Tom McCarthy plays Wells. The wider cast includes Michael Chernus, Garret Dillahunt, Danielle Macdonald and Owen Teague.

Cox has described the film as a “dysfunctional love story” inside the true-crime case, in an interview with Deadline. That points to the strange, controlling relationship at the centre of the plot rather than a straight retelling of the police file.

Evil Genius screened in Gala Presentations, the festival’s section for high-profile titles, and was included in Deadline’s TIFF 2026 reviews round-up. The festival’s programme page describes the film as chilling, fascinating and darkly hilarious, according to TIFF. Cornerstone Films is handling international sales, meaning it sells cinema distribution rights outside the home market.

TIFF lists a further screening for Friday, September 18, presented with open captions, where dialogue and sound cues appear as on-screen text. Cox walked the premiere red carpet in an all-black look, according to People.

For fans of the original series, this version means a shift from documentary to acted drama. The facts stay familiar. The telling is new.