“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?’ As soon as I had that, it was like, let’s play with this and see where it will lead,” says writer/director Drew Hancock, who decided that defying genre expectations was the more compelling path to take with Companion.
“Once I had the basics – in the not-too-distant future, six friends gather at a remote lake house for a weekend of leisure – I immediately began to relate to Iris,” says Hancock. “I thought about every time I had met my girlfriends’ friends and family, and how alienating that feeling is. And the more I related to her, the more I started to think, ‘What if the robot is the most empathetic person in the story?’”
Hancock was deeply immersed in writing what would become Companion in 2021 when a friend, connected with someone at BoulderLight, slipped him Zach Cregger’s script for the horror 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.
After completing the script, Hancock sent the script to J.D. Lifshitz at BoulderLight, whose response was enthusiastic. Excited by the script’s originality and constant surprises, it quickly caught the attention of other key figures at BoulderLight, including producer Raphael Margules and Vertigo’s Zach Cregger and Roy Lee.
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.”
Producer Zach Cregger remembers, “When I read the script, I was surprised continually. I was just never ahead of the movie. I’ve seen so many movies, I’ve read so many scripts, you know, oftentimes I can predict where things are going to go, and I’m disappointed when I’m right. This was one of those scripts where I just had no idea all the way through.”
Originally set to direct the film, Cregger played a crucial role in transitioning the directorial duties to Hancock himself. During an early discussion, Cregger realized that Hancock had an exceptionally clear vision for the film. This led Cregger to rethink his role in the project: “This guy had the movie in his head so clearly, the best thing I could do was kind of get out of his way and support him in making the movie. I think there’s something really special that happens when the writer is also the director, because they just have an innate understanding of the material and the world.”
Taking a role as producer, Cregger approached BoulderLight and Vertigo, seeking their approval to offer the director’s chair to Hancock.
Hancock admits, “When Zach asked me, I was so caught off-guard that I was like, ‘Oh, I need to think about this…’ But then I realized, I really wanted to take on the challenge.”
The production of Companion was driven by the team’s shared enthusiasm for its innovative narrative. Producer Raphael Margules says, “We were really lucky that our partners at New Line recognized immediately that they had something special on their hands, and they really opened the doors for us to just get this thing up and running.”
“Companion” is a genre-blending tale, with Hancock managing to upend the traditional structure for each genre touched upon, engineering a story with twists and turns to create a timely and unique visual tale that defies easy categorization.
The journey to writer-director Drew Hancock’sfirst feature film Companion is marked by talent, perseverance and an unwavering dedication to his craft. The film showcases Hancock’s deep passion for the horror genre, blending it with thrills, action and a generous dose of humor.
Margules offers, “I think people go to the movies for one reason and one reason only: to have fun, to have a good time. And Companion delivers on that and gives you a good time, whether that be as a thriller, a sci-fi movie, a horror movie, a comedy, a hangout movie. It’s a genre picture that combines a lot of genres. It’s a midnight movie. It’s a fun movie.”
Cregger describes it as “a sci-fi hybrid movie about a young woman who goes on what should be a routine weekend vacation with her boyfriend and his gang, and it devolves into something grizzly and surprising… but not in the slasher kind of standard fare that we’ve all seen a bunch of times. This is definitely a hot twist on an old theme. Drew’s done a really great job of setting up a friend group, a dynamic that feels like it has a lot of history and a lot of backstory.”
That young “woman” accompanying her boyfriend Josh on the getaway is the ‘companion’ Iris, who is played by Sophie Thatcher. Thatcher reflects, “When you first meet both of them, I feel like you definitely want to support them. I think they both seem a little bit like outsiders. She’s a little bit stressed, but very put together. She’s very ‘60s. She’s very classic. He’s a bit nerdy, and they seem like a very charming couple. But actually, Iris is in a very codependent relationship, and she’s willing to give anything to make Josh feel loved and cared for.
“Adding to her stress,” adds Thatcher, “is this house in the woods, which is a character in and of itself. It deepens her feeling of isolation—that nobody can help you. She is actually on her own.”
Hancock explains, “Iris is someone who initially doesn’t understand her own strength and capabilities. She’s almost like someone suffering from imposter syndrome, feeling out of place and unsure of her own identity. Sophie brings a very incredibly natural quality to Iris as a character… a robot that doesn’t know how to necessarily be human. She brings a quality to the character that is just so deeply human.”
It’s when Iris realizes that she’s not human that her journey really begins. Thatcher offers, “Her whole world is completely shifted and she realizes that she can’t be with Josh. There’s self-discovery, and she starts finding her own free will and sets out to be independent.”
Jack Quaid, who plays Josh, was the first actor cast for the film. Margules recounts, “Jack was actually our first attachment, and that really helped get everything moving. He completely got the script immediately.”
“I remember when I read the script,” says Quaid, “I immediately said, ‘I have to do this,’ and I tried to get a meeting with Drew as soon as I possibly could.”
Described by Hancock as “a character who appears charming and supportive on the surface, but harbors a need for control and dominance over Iris,” Josh’s duality adds layers to his character, making his interactions with Iris more complex and unsettling.
“It’s a really interesting character to play and a fascinating relationship dynamic to explore,” explains Quaid. “You want the audience to not really suspect anything’s wrong. Part of that comes from Drew, who’s a really funny guy, and he always made sure that the comedy played. Doing that, he’s made this movie that really defies typical genre.”
Hancock’s vision for “Companion” was to balance sci-fi, thriller and horror elements without leaning too heavily into any single genre. This balance was likewise reflected in the visual effects strategy.
“We tried to keep things a nice balance between horror and sci-fi. We didn’t want to go too sci-fi, but we also don’t want to go too horror with it, either,” says Hancock.
Visual effects supervisor Jamison Goei blended practical effects with digital enhancements to find that balance and maintain a sense of realism. “I don’t like seeing tons of CGI all over the place,” says Goei. “So, whenever I can, I’ll always advocate for doing it practically.”
To build the world of “Companion,” Hancock collaborated with production designer Scott Kuzio. The brief was to create a familiar yet subtly futuristic setting, maintaining a sense of ambiguity about the time and place in which the film is set. “We originally discussed a very sci-fi futurist vibe,” says Kuzio. “I think as we got more and more into it, we wanted more minimalism without trying to play too much into sci-fi futurism. We wanted the viewer to always be questioning where they were in time.”
“I know it is a sci-fi movie at its core, but I didn’t want it to look and feel like a sci-fi movie,” says Hancock. “We wanted it to feel almost like a soap opera a little bit—a relationship drama.” This approach was pivotal in guiding the design choices, aiming to create an atmosphere that felt both familiar and, at the same time, subtly unsettling.
The setting in the screenplay called for a secluded location. “Drew wrote it to be something that felt isolated,” explains Kuzio. “It’s a classic horror trope: the house, the cabin in the woods.”
This archetypal horror setting is complemented by modernist design elements that give the house a sense of age and abandonment, despite its luxurious nature. “Although it’s a modernist house, we wanted it to feel like there’s still age to it… like it could have been something that has been let go,” continues Kuzio. “Most of this movie takes place there. We wanted it to immediately feel like it offered a sense of comfort, but then there is the realization that it’s in the middle of the mountains, in the middle of nowhere.”
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. Iris is special, and no one at the company seems to grasp that. 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.”
After graduating college, Drew Hancock headed west and took on a variety of production roles, eventually finding his way to Channel 101, a pioneering online comedy platform that predates both Funny or Die and YouTube. Channel 101 became a creative playground for Hancock, where he wrote and directed shows such as Cautionary Tales Of Swords, The Mountain and Wastelander. He even took on acting, playing John Oates of Hall & Oates in the iconic Channel 101 series Yacht Rock. Hancock continued to sharpen his skills in television, writing for comedy series such as Blue Mountain State (Spike TV), Mr. Pickles (Adult Swim), and Suburgatory (ABC). He also contributed to multiple high-profile award shows, including the MTV Video Music Awards, Spike TV’s Video Game Awards and Nickelodeon’s Kids’ Choice Awards. In 2018, he created My Dead Ex for Awesomeness TV, a series that earned a Grand Jury Award nomination in the Independent Episodic category at the SXSW Film Festival. Determined to transition out of television, Hancock set his sights on the big screen and wrote the screenplay for Companion, a dark and twisted tale of romance gone awry. The project initially drew the interest of Zach Cregger (Barbarian) as director. However, after recognizing Hancock’s clear vision for the film, Cregger encouraged him to take the helm, opting instead to serve as producer. The result is a film that showcases Hancock’s confidence and skill as a filmmaker, earning him a spot on Variety’s “10 Directors to Watch” list in 2025.
