Yellowjackets’ Sophie Thatcher to Star in Zach Cregger Movie Companion – The Hollywood Reporter

Sophie Thatcher, one of the breakouts from Showtime sensation Yellowjackets, has nabbed the titular role in Companion, the sci-fi thriller from the team behind last year’s horror hit Barbarian.

The project has been casting up ahead of a hoped-for summer start of production and has Jack Quaid, Lukas Gage, Megan Suri and Harvey Guillén on the call sheet.

Drew Hancock wrote the original script and is making his directorial debut with the feature, the many plot points of which are being kept hush-hush. It is, however, being described as self-contained, and Thatcher is set to play a character who is more than meets the eye.

The feature is being produced by Zach Cregger, the filmmaker who made the twist-filled, pulse-rushing Barbarian, and his Barbarian companions Raphael Margules and J.D. Lifshitz of BoulderLight Pictures and Roy Lee of Vertigo.

BoulderLight’s Tracy Rosenblum and Vertigo’s Andrew Childs will executive produce.

Companion was won by New Line in a hot horror auction near the beginning of the year. It was initially going to act as BoulderLight and Cregger’s follow-up to Barbarian before the filmmaker switched tracks to focus on his own script, Weapons, also now casting and at New Line. But the team helped Companion land not just a home but a production greenlight, backing Hancock to make his directorial debut. 

Thatcher is best known for playing teenage Natalie, the younger version of the character portrayed by Juliette Lewis, in Yellowjackets, Showtime’s acclaimed and popular survival drama. The show, which recently finished airing its second season, became Showtime’s most watched series of the last six years and scored seven Emmy nominations for its first season.

Thatcher, who also had a small role in The Book of Boba Fett, is currently on screens with 20th Century Studios’ adaptation of Stephen King story The Boogeyman.

She is repped by CAA, Anonymous Content and Jackoway Austen.