EXCLUSIVE : Vertical has acquired U.S. rights to writer-director Jess Varley’s sci-fi thriller The Astronaut , which had its world premiere at 2025’s South by Southwest Film Festival.

The film, starring Kate Mara ( Friendship ), Laurence Fishburne ( The Amateur ), Gabriel Luna ( The Last of Us ), Ivana Milicevic ( Sherlock & Daughter ), and singer-actress Macy Gray ( Phobias ), is slated for release later this fall.

The synopsis reads: “When astronaut Sam Walker (Mara) returns from her first space mission, she’s found miraculously alive in a punctured capsule floating deep off the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. General William Harris (Fishburne) arranges for her to be placed under intense NASA surveillance in a high security house for rehabilitation and medical testing. Ho

See Full Page