Courteney Cox's second directorial feature, "Evil Genius," premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, dramatising the notorious 2003 "pizza bomber" case in which Brian Wells was killed by a bomb strapped to his neck during a bank robbery he was forced to commit. Adapted from the 2018 Netflix docuseries by screenwriter Courtenay Miles, the film centres less on the crime itself and more on the toxic, years-long romance between co-conspirators Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong and Bill Rothstein, whose warped relationship drove the bizarre plot. Critics praised the film for balancing dark comedy with a respectful treatment of the real-life tragedy, marking a confident step forward for Cox as a director more than a decade after her debut.

Patricia Arquette and David Harbour lead the film as Diehl-Armstrong and Rothstein, delivering performances singled out for their commitment, with Harbour reportedly unrecognisable beneath prosthetics. The supporting cast includes Michael Chernus, Garret Dillahunt, Danielle Macdonald and Owen Teague, alongside cameo appearances from Cox and Arquette's real-life daughters. Running 94 minutes, the film also touches on the inheritance scheme that motivated the heist and the discovery of a body in a freezer that helped police crack the case, distinguishing itself from a loosely related 2011 film by taking the human cost of the events seriously.