Kit Connor is leaving Riordan family drama behind for a much darker corner of New York history. He and Diana Silvers star in Preppy, a true-crime feature about the 1986 Central Park killing the tabloids branded the Preppy Murder case, with Janicza Bravo directing. MSN has the details, and for those of us who devoured the documentaries on this case a few years back, this one's worth paying attention to.

The bare facts, for anyone who hasn't gone down this rabbit hole: Jennifer Levin, 18, was found dead in Central Park in August 1986. Robert Chambers, the prep-school kid with the polished exterior, was arrested and eventually pleaded guilty to manslaughter in a deal that spared everyone a second trial after the first one fell apart. The media turned the whole thing into a frenzy about privilege, preppiness and victim-blaming that still feels gross to read about four decades later.

Connor plays Chambers, with Silvers as Levin. Heavy material for both of them, and a sharp pivot for Connor, who spent last year charming everyone in Heartstopper and then going full action-mode in Warfare. The kid clearly isn't interested in being typecast. Silvers has been building toward this kind of weight too, ever since Booksmart and Ava.

And it isn't a someday project. The film is shooting right now in Brooklyn Heights, which means the casting news dropped with cameras already rolling. Bravo is a fascinating pick for this material, someone with a real eye for uneasy Americana, and I'm curious how her sensibility bends a story this lurid at its roots.

No release date yet, so that box stays blank for now. What I'll be watching for is tone. The best true-crime movies, your Zodiacs and Under the Banner of Heavens, resist making the killer magnetic. The worst ones can't help themselves. The Preppy Murder case already got litigated on 1980s tabloid covers, and Jennifer Levin's family has been through enough retellings that the filmmakers owe them something careful, not something lurid.

I'm in for Connor's performance either way. Whether the movie around it sticks the landing, we'll find out when a date surfaces. Keeping this one on the tracker.