Mackenzie Davis To Star In Sci-Fi Thriller ‘Vivarium’; XYZ Handling Sales – Cannes

EXCLUSIVE: Mackenzie Davis is set to star in Vivarium, a sci-fi thriller directed by Lorcan Finnegan. XYZ Films is launching sales on the project to foreign buyers here in Cannes this week.

Davis will play a young woman who, along with her fiancé, is in search of the perfect starter home. After following a mysterious real estate agent to a new housing development, the couple finds themselves trapped in a maze of identical houses and forced to raise an otherworldly child.

Fantastic Films’ Brendan McCarthy and John McDonnell will produce in co-production with Belgium’s Frakas Productions, with XYZ exec producing and handling global sales. Vivarium will also receive additional support from the Irish Film Board. Project is eyeing a September start of production.

Davis can next be seen in Denis Villenueve’s highly-anticipated Blade Runner 2049, along with appearing in the title role of Jason Reitman’s upcoming motherhood comedy Tully. She also starred in the critically-acclaimed “San Junipero” episode in the latest season of sci-fi anthology Black Mirror.

Finnegan burst onto the film scene in 2016 with his debut feature Without Name, an ecological horror-thriller that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. XYZ also handled North American sales on the project.

XYZ Films is one of this year’s Deadline Disruptors and it’s coming off the back of a banner start to the year. In January, XYZ-produced title I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore, directed by Macon Blaire and starring Melanie Lynskey and Elijah Wood, took home the Grand Jury Prize in Sundance while horror-thriller Under the Shadow, the debut feature from Anglo-Iranian director Babak Anvari took home a BAFTA for Outstanding Debut. One of the company’s newest productions, Bushwick, directed by Cary Murnion and Jonathan Milot and which imagines a second U.S. civil war, is playing in the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight section this year.

Davis is repped by UTA.