EXCLUSIVE: Anne Hathaway will star in O2, a contained thriller with sci-fi elements that is fast coming together for a fall shoot. IM Global is closing a deal to finance the film that will fall in the $10 million budget range. In the script by Christie LeBlanc, Hathaway will play a woman who wakes up inside a cryogenic chamber, with no memory of how she got there. She must escape the chamber before her air runs out. Its sci-fi elements make it a closer cousin to Gravity than Buried, even though like both of those, the scenes are largely devoted to a single performer. Suzan Bymel and Hathaway have just signed on to produce with Echo Lake’s Adam Riback and James Engle, and IM Global’s Stuart Ford and Greg Shapiro will also be producers. They will quickly find a director, with CAA representing domestic rights.

IM Global is right now shooting Serenity with Hathaway and Matthew McConaughey, which made for a good match on their next project together. A charming back story here is the writer, LeBlanc. A single mother from the sleepy town of Gatineau, Quebec, LeBlanc wrote the script and sent it unsolicited to Echo Lake’s Riback and Engle. They developed subsequent drafts with her. When they first sent it out to talent, O2 impressed the town enough that it became one of the top choices for the 2016 Black List. Now it has a bankable Oscar-winning heroine in the main role, one who is being courted for numerous other films for her fall slot, but who chose O2. The scribe signed with Echo Lake for management and CAA for representation off her first screenplay. Hathaway most recently wrapped Oceans Eight, the Gary Ross-directed spinoff she stars in with a cast that includes Cate Blanchett, Sandra Bullock and Helena Bonham Carter. Hathaway is repped by CAA and Management 360.