Daisy Ridley will lead Paramount+’s Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea reboot

If you thought Daisy Ridley would just be galavanting around galaxies for the next decade, think again. She’s about to take on the deep – and apparently weird – ocean in a new Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea series that’s heading for Paramount+. If you recognise the title, yes, it’s a reworking of Irwin Allen’s classic 60s undersea sci-fi. This time, though, it sounds like they’ve gone properly all-in on lost history, conspiracy, and Atlantis.

Out of the Ice, Into Atlantis

The new series, still in the early stages, is being developed with some heavy hitters from the sci-fi world. Akiva Goldsman (who’s already had a crack at both Star Trek: Picard and Strange New Worlds), Matt Shakman (WandaVision, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters), and Legendary Television are all attached. Ridley won’t just be in front of the camera – she’s producing as well.

Deadline reports Ridley is set for the lead as Lee Crane – now reimagined as an ocean scientist, not just a Navy man in a suit. She gets pulled into a highly shadowy government programme after a disastrous Arctic expedition, where her identical twin sister is lost (so, expect some emotional baggage). The job: command a submarine, the USS Seaview, which has been discovered in the Arctic, stuck under sheets of ice and covered with strange markings. Markings, by the way, that according to the story shouldn’t even exist given what we know of history. Naturally, the sub only comes to life when Lee boards, which is never ominous at all.

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea was first a film in 1961, before it became a four-season series on ABC from 1964 to 1968.

The plot apparently mixes high-stakes missions where Lee has to keep mysterious ‘forces’ bottled up beneath the waves, alongside darker revelations about the true past of humanity, forgotten secrets under the sea, and Atlantis itself. If you’re into your ancient mysteries and submarine tech (and who isn’t, really?), this one’s clearly being built to scratch that itch.

The Team Assembles

Backing up Ridley are Goldsman and Shakman as fellow executive producers, along with Jon Jashni (he was behind the Lost in Space Netflix remake, so this is his bag), and Derek Thielges as co-producer. They’ve already got a writer’s room in session, and the whole thing is being put together in collaboration with the Irwin Allen Estate.

In case your memory’s fuzzy, Irwin Allen kicked off Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea as a film in 1961 – big technicolor drama, nuclear subs, the lot – then spun it off as a TV series that ran for four seasons on ABC through the ‘60s, starring Admiral Nelson and, crucially for this reboot, Captain Lee Crane. This new take clearly isn’t afraid to shuffle the characters round and give things a haunted edge.

• Daisy Ridley stars as Lee Crane, ocean scientist with a tragic past
• USS Seaview is rediscovered, entombed in Arctic ice
• Mysterious symbols and tech on the sub hint at a lost chapter of human history
• Government conspiracies, unwanted alliances, and missions to stop supernatural threats
• Atlantis set for a major story role

Ridley, of course, became a household name as Rey in the Star Wars sequels, then went indie with things like We Bury the Dead and Cleaner. Goldsman bagged an Oscar for A Beautiful Mind before diving into Trek; Shakman’s had his hands on everything from WandaVision to the new Fantastic Four movie (whenever that actually lands).

If all this pans out, expect a retro-futurist look with all the existential mystery and dodgy government oversight you could ever ask for—plus plenty of underwater spectacle. No word yet on a release date, but this is one to keep an eye on if you like your sci-fi dunked deep and strange.