Jai Courtney and Welsh actress Morfydd Clark will star opposite each other in writer/director Dario Russo’s debut feature, The Fox, set to begin filming in Australia midway through next year.
To be produced by Kristina Ceyton and Samantha Jennings of Causeway Films, the dark satire follows Nick (Courtney), a vain heir to a vineyard dynasty who upon discovering his fiancé (Clark) is cheating on him, decides he wants nothing more than to avoid embarrassment and get the issue resolved.
In his desperation, he follows the advice of a rogue fox, who promises that his doomed relationship will be fixed if he pushes his loved one into a magic hole that has the power to transform flawed people into perfect partners.
The woman who re-emerges seems to be everything he ever wanted, until her strange new quirks lead him to question his decision.
Dave Bishop, Luane Gauer, and George Hamilton are executive producers on the film, with Protagonist Pictures handling worldwide sales and co-repping North American sales rights with UTA.
Ceyton and Jennings described Russo as a “one-of-a-kind talent” who they had been wanting to work with since his 1980s-set comedy series Danger 5, which aired on SBS in 2012.
The Fox received development funding from Screen Australia in 2020.
“It’s an honour to support [Russo] to make his debut feature, which is a brilliant and absurdly funny satire about human relationships and the struggle between our desire for domestication and our animal natures,” they said in a joint statement.
“We are thrilled to bring together exemplary lead actors in Morfydd and Jai, who will bring reality, nuance, and charisma to these roles.”
Their sentiments were echoed by Bishop, CEO of Protagonist Pictures, who said Russo was “the perfect helmer” for the project, which explored “desire, deceit and what truly goes on behind the façade of normality”.
“Jai is perfectly cast as Nick, having built an incredible career portraying engaging characters who find themselves in otherworldly circumstances, and demand for Morfydd continues to deservedly grow following her exquisite performance in Saint Maud.”