“Margaret Qualley (The Nice Guys, HBO’s The Leftovers), Anthony Mackie (Captain America: Civil War, The Hurt Locker), and Danny Huston (Wonder Woman, FX’s American Horror Story) will headline the character-driven science fiction film IO. The project, which was developed at the Sundance Institute’s Writers Lab and the Sundance Institute Catalyst Forum, will be helmed by Jonathan Helpert (House of Time) from an original script by Clay Jeter (Jess + Moss, Chef’s Table), Charles Spano (Embers), and Will Basanta (Jess + Moss). Berman and Rister will produce IO for Mandalay Pictures and Untitled Entertainment respectively. The film will premiere globally on Netflix in 2019.
The film tells the story of one girl’s coming of age while examining the dangers of humanity’s current relationship with the planet. Qualley will play Sam Walden, a teenager surviving as one of the last people on an abandoned post-cataclysmic Earth, who is racing to find a cure for her poisoned home world before the last shuttle off the planet to the distant human space colony leaves her stranded. Mackie will play Micah, a complicated and mysterious refugee on his way to the imminent shuttle launch who makes Sam question whether she can really alter Earth’s fate.”
