New Line Cinema—the studio that brought you “The Notebook”—and the unhinged creators of “Barbarian” cordially invite you to experience a new kind of love story titled Companion.
Written and directed by Drew Hancock (“My Dead Ex,” “Suburgatory”), “Companion” stars Sophie Thatcher (“Heretic,” “The Boogeyman”), Jack Quaid
(“The Boys,” “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse”), Lukas Gage (“ White Lotus”, “Smile 2), Megan Suri (“Never Have I Ever,” “It Lives Inside”).
Interestingly, when writer/ director Drew Hancock was deeply immersed in writing the film, a friend shared with him the script for “Barbarian.” The filmmaker recalls, “I’m writing ‘Companion’ and I’m reading ‘Barbarian.’ And it was a great reminder that you don’t have to follow all the rules. You can, halfway through the movie, switch POVs and do whatever you want. Just forget about all the structure nonsense. You can do whatever you want, as long as it’s interesting. “This revelation gave Hancock the creative freedom to explore unconventional storytelling techniques in his screenplay, transforming “Companion” into a complex story that weaves together the genres of sci-fi, horror and thriller, laced with a large and very intentional streak of dark comedy. Hancock recalls with a smile, “It was 48 hours after I’d written ‘The End’ on the script, and I already had four producers attached.”
In the not-too-distant future, six friends gather at a remote lake house for a weekend of leisure. What could go wrong? In certain genre circles, that’s certainly a
loaded question that might elicit trope-y answers. But for writer/director Drew Hancock, defying genre expectations was the more compelling path to take through these specific woods. Talking about creating the world of Companion, he says, “There are so many movies about AI, and I think everyone’s first instinct is to do a story of AI gone wrong. I thought, ‘What if it’s a story about AI gone right? What if the robot is the most empathetic person in the story? As soon as I had that, it was like, let’s play with this and see where it will lead.”
With “Companion,” Drew Hancock aims to create a world that feels both familiar and slightly off-kilter, heightening the film’s psychological impact. He reflects, “I felt the key was to ground these characters in reality while allowing for the sci-fi elements to
naturally emerge. I hoped this approach would keep the audience invested in their journeys and the unfolding mystery.” Along the way, the theme of AI’s place in the modern world emerges. But it’s not what the filmmaker wants to take center stage: “This is not a statement about AI being good or bad. The real bad guy is not Iris, but the company that created her. They really don’t comprehend the responsibility of putting that kind of technology in the hands of people who want to use it for other, selfish purposes.”
He concludes, “In the end, I made a movie that I wanted to make. The whole point of it is to subvert what you’re expecting the next 10 minutes to be. It’s kind of reinventing itself constantly. I think of it as ‘horror adjacent.’ People might be expecting it to be a ‘horror film,’ but hopefully we subvert their expectations and it becomes even more fun—because it’s not the movie that they expect it to be—and they just hang on and fully commit to the ride.”
New Line Cinema presents A BoulderLight Pictures Production, In Association With Vertigo Entertainment/Subconscious: “Companion”. The film will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, in theaters and IMAX nationwide on January 31, 2025
