Companion: Jack Quaid to star in sci-fi thriller from the Barbarian team

At the start of this year, New Line Cinema went all-in on a partnership with Barbarian (watch it HERE) writer/director Zach Cregger and the film’s producers at BoulderLight Pictures. New Line came out the winner in a bidding war over Cregger’s next film, a mysterious horror project called Weapons. They signed a first look deal with BoulderLight Pictures, tasking the company with developing high concept genre projects for them. And they gave a greenlight to the sci-fi thriller Companion, produced by BoulderLight and Cregger, putting the film on the fast track to production. Now The Hollywood Reporter has broken the news that Jack Quaid of The Boys and last year’s Scream has signed on to star in Companion.

Drew Hancock wrote the screenplay for Companion, and Cregger was so impressed by it that he considered making the film his directorial follow-up to Barbarian. Instead, Hancock will be making his feature directorial debut with Companion while Cregger focuses on Weapons. Details on this one are being kept completely under wraps. We don’t know anything about the story or the character Quaid will be playing.

Hancock’s previous writing credits include episodes of Supah Ninjas, Blue Mountain State, Fred: The Show, Suburgatory, Faking It, Mr. Pickles, and My Dead Ex (which he co-created), as well as the movie Fred 3: Camp Fred. While he has never directed a movie before, he has directed episodes of Acceptable TV and Jimmy Kimmel Live!, as well as a Tenacious D music video.

Cregger is producing Companion with Raphael Margules and J.D. Lifshitz of BoulderLight Pictures, as well as Roy Lee of Vertigo. BoulderLight’s Tracy Rosenblum and Vertigo’s Andrew Childs serve as executive producers.

I enjoyed Barbarian, but even with Cregger on board as producer it’s difficult to work up much enthusiasm for Companion at this point. I need to know something about the movie’s plot before I can figure out whether or not I’m interested in it.

Are you already interested in Companion? What do you think of Jack Quaid being the first actor to join the cast? Let us know by leaving a comment below.