Jennifer Lawrence is heading into science fiction for Zach Cregger’s next original movie. The Oscar winner will lead The Flood, a new thriller from the filmmaker behind Barbarian, Weapons and this year’s Resident Evil.
Cregger wrote the screenplay from his own original idea and will direct and produce the film for New Line Cinema. Amblin Entertainment is producing alongside Roy Lee and Miri Yoon of Vertigo Entertainment, and Warner Bros. has scheduled a theatrical release for August 11, 2028.
The studio has not released a synopsis or identified Lawrence’s character. Cregger has previously described The Flood as science fiction rather than a conventional horror movie, saying it has disturbing material and horror scenes but is ultimately more cerebral and structurally ambitious than a straightforward scare vehicle.
“Jennifer is one of a kind, and I’m beyond excited to see her in this role,” Cregger said in the casting announcement, according to TheWrap.
Lawrence Is the First Star Announced for Cregger’s New Film
Lawrence is the first major cast member publicly attached to The Flood, putting her at the center of a project that Warner Bros. film chiefs Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy described as Cregger’s “bold and wholly original vision.” The executives said they were eager to work with Cregger, Vertigo and Amblin again following their experience on Weapons.
Entertainment Weekly independently confirmed Lawrence’s casting and the August 2028 release date. The outlet also reported that Steven Spielberg’s Amblin is producing with Lee and Yoon, while Amblin’s official site lists The Flood among its feature projects.
Cregger Came Up With the Idea While Trying to Work With Spielberg
Cregger has revealed more about how The Flood came together than about what actually happens in it. He told Deadline that the concept emerged during a brief window in which he was eager to create something he could make with Spielberg and gave himself roughly five days to find the right idea.
According to Entertainment Weekly’s account of that interview, inspiration arrived while Cregger was watching another science-fiction movie with his wife and began thinking about what could make an abandoned-spacecraft scenario stranger and more frightening. He said the full movie suddenly seemed to appear in his mind, giving him the idea he had been searching for.
Cregger has since described the finished concept in broader creative terms rather than revealing its mechanics. In interviews surrounding Resident Evil, he called The Flood “very cerebral” and “more sophisticated,” while telling TheWrap that it has his most bizarre narrative structure yet and is “a bit more of an adult movie” despite containing horror sequences.
‘The Flood’ Left Netflix After a Fight Over a Theatrical Release
The film’s path to New Line began before Lawrence joined the cast. TheWrap reported in November 2025 that Cregger had written the project through Amblin’s relationship with Netflix but that development stalled because he wanted a firm theatrical commitment that the streamer had not provided.
The project subsequently went into turnaround, and New Line picked it up earlier this year, according to The Hollywood Reporter. By April, Warner Bros. had already placed The Flood on its theatrical calendar for August 2028, and the current casting report says principal photography is due to begin in Europe during the opening months of 2027. That move also reunites Cregger with the studio behind Weapons.
Lawrence Already Has Two Other Major Movies on Her Schedule
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The Flood joins a busy stretch for Lawrence after Die My Love. She is also starring opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese’s What Happens at Night, which began production in the Czech Republic earlier this year with Apple Original Films.
TheWrap reported that Lawrence and DiCaprio play a married American couple traveling to a snowy European town to adopt a baby. She is also returning as Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, which opens November 20, 2026.