Aura Entertainment Acquires U.S. Rights to Dark Comedy 'The Fox,' Starring Olivia Colman and Sam Neill
Aura Entertainment has picked up U.S. distribution rights to The Fox, a dark comedy from first-time feature director Dario Russo, and will open it in American theatres on 4 December 2026, according to Deadline. The Australian release precedes it on 26 November.
The film boasts a striking cast: Jai Courtney, Emily Browning, Academy Award-winner Olivia Colman, and the late Sam Neill. Colman and Neill provide voice performances, while Courtney and Browning appear on screen — and also serve as executive producers on the project.
The premise is the kind of logline that turns heads. A talking fox offers an affable hunter the chance to transform his cheating partner into the perfect woman. Unforeseen consequences follow, as they tend to when woodland creatures start making promises.
Russo arrives at his feature debut with a cult-comedy pedigree. He created and wrote Danger 5, the television series that built a devoted following for its absurd wartime-spy pastiche, and the viral parody web-series Italian Spiderman. He has also co-created and co-written Dad's House, an upcoming animated series for Netflix.
The Fox has already logged a substantial festival run. It had its world premiere at the Adelaide Film Festival, its international premiere at SXSW in Austin — where it was an official 2026 selection, per Madman Films — and subsequent screenings at Montreal's Fantasia Festival, the Melbourne International Film Festival, and the Sydney Film Festival. That circuit is the marketplace where independent films build the word-of-mouth that distributors bet on.
Behind the camera, the film was produced by Kristina Ceyton and Samantha Jennings through their company Causeway Films. The production drew major investment from Screen Australia, with additional backing from Orogen Entertainment and the South Australian Film Corporation. Further financing came from A-Up Duck Productions, Kojo Studios, Flickstar, and the Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund.
The U.S. acquisition was negotiated by Lina Marrone, Protagonist Pictures' Head of Sales, on behalf of the filmmakers. Protagonist Pictures is the London-based international sales agent handling rights outside territories already sold. Executive producers from Orogen Entertainment include Blair Ward, Anders Erdén, and Lauren Case, alongside Jamie McClurg, Dale Roberts, David C Lancaster, Salman Al-Rashid, Daniel Negret, Dario Russo, Jai Courtney, and Emily Browning.
Aura Entertainment is a partnership between Signature Entertainment, Capstone Pictures, and Ascending Media, and positions itself as a distributor of mid-to-high-end independent films for mainstream audiences, per its company website. Marc Goldberg of Aura cited the film's originality and cast as the draw.
For audiences, the December slot puts The Fox in the early awards-season corridor — a window where a dark comedy with this kind of cast can find room to breathe before the year-end blockbusters crowd the marquee. Neill's involvement lends the film a bittersweet weight; the New Zealand actor, beloved for Jurassic Park and a career spanning five decades, passed before the film's release.
A release date in India has been listed as 29 October 2026 by the Times of India, though the U.S. and Australian dates from Deadline remain the most recently confirmed.
