‘Mandy’ Filmmaker Panos Cosmatos Teams With A24, XYZ Films for Sci-Fi Fantasy ‘Nekrokosm’ (Exclusive)

Panos Cosmatos has kept a low-profile since making his last film, Mandy, the surprise hit that starred Nicolas Cage and released in 2018.

Now the filmmaker is back with a new feature project, reuniting with producer XYZ Films and working for the first time with A24, the artist-driven and envelope-pushing production and distribution company.

Titled Nekrokosm, the project is a science-fiction fantasy that has Maegan Houang (Counterpart) writing the script from a story by her and Cosmatos. Cosmatos will direct.

Nekrokosm’s logline is being kept secret, but the film is described as a “phantasmagorical fantasy nightmare” and set deep within a strange galaxy where two lovers are torn apart as they try to survive a malevolent invasion.

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A24 will produce alongside Nate Bolotin of XYZ Films. A24 will also finance and handle worldwide releasing.

Houang has some experience with the far-out, having been part of the writing team on Counterpart, Starz’s parallel-dimension-jumping spy thriller that starred J.K. Simmons. She also worked on FX’s upcoming miniseries Shogun and co-wrote Justin Chon’s forthcoming feature Jamojaya.

XYZ, a big producer, financier and sales outfit in the genre space, has action movie Havoc, directed by Gareth Evans and starring Tom Hardy and Forest Whitaker, in the can for Netflix. The company established a relationship with Cosmatos on the sale and distribution of his debut, sci-fi horror flick Beyond the Black Rainbow, in 2010.

Cosmatos and XYZ reunited on the production and worldwide sales of Mandy, his follow-up that was eight years in the making. The movie, a psychedelic revenge horror-thriller, premiered at Sundance in 2018 and was released theatrically in September of that year by RLJ Entertainment. The movie proved to be a surprise hit and served as a career rebirth for Cage, who at the time had been on a run of forgettable low-budget action movies. Both Cage and Cosmatos enjoyed near-universal acclaim.

While he pondered his next movie, Cosmatos took time to helm an episode of Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities for Netflix, which is in postproduction.

A24 currently has Ti West’s acclaimed horror movie X in theaters. The company behind 2021’s The Green Knight and The Tragedy of Macbeth next has the multiple-timeline-spanning Everything Everywhere All at Once, starring Michelle Yeoh, hitting theaters Friday.