Is the Film 'Gone Girl' Based on Sherri Papini’s Staged Kidnapping?

The case of Sherri Papini is certainly a perplexing one, and, sadly, the perfect basis for a true-crime movie. Maybe that’s why so many people are convinced Gone Girl, the 2014 film starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike, based on Gillian Flynn’s 2012 novel, is actually based on bits and pieces of Sherri’s wild story.

Here's a quick recap for those who forgot: Sherri disappeared in 2016, and three weeks later, reappeared claiming she had been kidnapped and physically abused.

At first, some speculated that her husband, Keith Papini, might’ve been involved. But as it turns out, Sherri staged the whole thing and had been hiding out with a former boyfriend the entire time.

Gone Girl follows a somewhat similar storyline. Amy fakes her own disappearance after finding out her husband cheated on her (she's also pregnant), and plots to frame him for her murder. So with both stories following a similar arc, it raises the question: Is Gone Girl based on Sherri Papini?

The film Gone Girl isn't based on Sherri Papini’s staged kidnapping, or any other specific case, for that matter. In fact, it couldn’t be based on Sherri’s story at all, since both the book and the movie came out years before her hoax even happened. The novel was released in 2012, the film followed in 2014, and Sherri’s incident didn’t occur until 2016.

However, Gone Girl may draw inspiration from other real-life criminal cases, like the one involving Laci Peterson. Entertainment Weekly caught up with Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn back in 2012 to talk about where her inspiration may have come from, if anywhere at all. Gillian explained, "I definitely didn’t want to do anything specific. One could point to Scott and Laci Peterson — they were certainly a good-looking couple. But they’re always good-looking couples."

While the endings in Gone Girl and the Laci Peterson case are drastically different, there are some striking similarities. As Gillian pointed out, the couples in these cases are often considered attractive, a theme that pops up again with Sherri and her then-husband Keith. Gillian further explained, "You don’t normally see incredibly ugly people who’ve gone missing and it becomes a sensation. It could be any number of those types of cases, but that was what kind of interested me: the selection and the packaging of a tragedy."

In Gone Girl, the main character Amy Dunne stages her own kidnapping and frames her cheating husband for her murder. While the couple ultimately stays together for the sake of their unborn child, the film ends on a happier note than the real-life case of Laci Peterson.

Laci actually disappeared, and like Nick Dunne in the film, her husband, Scott Peterson, was blamed for her murder. But unlike Amy, Laci never resurfaced as her remains, along with those of her unborn son, were later found in the San Francisco Bay. Scott was convicted of their murders but has continued to maintain his innocence.