The director of Barbarian and Weapons says his Jennifer Lawrence space film is the most disturbing thing he has made

Here we are then: Jennifer Lawrence is turning up in a new sci-fi thriller called The Flood, and the chap behind it is Zach Cregger. If his name rings a bell, it will be from Barbarian, Weapons, and the latest shot at Resident Evil. This one, apparently, is on another level entirely—a proper big deal for Cregger, and he reckons it’s the most disturbing thing he’s ever done. That’s saying something, after Barbarian.

Lawrence signs on, Cregger goes full sci-fi

Let’s get the production details sorted first. Cregger’s aiming to kick off "hard prep" in February, with filming pencilled in for next summer. If they stick the landing with that timeline, you’re looking at production starting in summer 2027. These big genre efforts do take their sweet time gestating.

Production on The Flood is currently planned for summer 2027.

As for what The Flood is actually about, good luck prising out anything specific. The plot’s very much still under wraps. Cregger has dropped one clue: it’ll all be happening in outer space. But here’s where things get weird—apparently, the whole concept materialised in a bit of a panic-inducing situation set up by Steven Spielberg. Spielberg gave Cregger a very brief window to pitch him an idea, and Cregger immediately hurled himself headfirst into a creative spiral, desperate to come up with something worthy.

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He described his ‘mental state’ at the time as utterly frantic, which, to be fair, is probably standard if Spielberg’s beckoning. The actual breakthrough happened at home, watching a sci-fi flick with his wife. There’s this moment where a character boards an abandoned spaceship, which set his wife off on one about space being the most terrifying place to get trapped, bar none. Cregger started down a rabbit hole about what could possibly be scarier or weirder than that setup.

Then, like a lightbulb going off, the idea for the entire film smacked him right between the eyes—just bang, there it was. To quote Cregger himself as he recounted the moment to Deadline:

“It’s never happened to me before, but in a flash, I had the whole movie explode in front of my eyes. It was a total ridiculous moment, but I love it.”

High stakes and higher expectations

The only thing Cregger’s making absolutely clear is that this film is going to be a real head-spinner, and Lawrence is set for a role unlike anything she’s done so far. He’s described her as ‘one of a kind’, and it doesn’t sound like that’s just press fluff—he’s properly excited to see what she does with this one.

Plot-wise, your guess is as good as mine right now, but with Cregger’s knack for twisty, twisted genre work and Spielberg having sat on the sidelines intrigued, The Flood is bound to draw more than a few eyeballs once it starts rolling cameras.

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