Daisy Ridley Just Signed On to Command a Submarine Trapped in Ice, and the Mysterious Vessel Only Answers to Her

From the vacuum of space to the crushing depths of the ocean. Daisy Ridley, the British star who carried the Star Wars sequel trilogy on her shoulders, has found her next big adventure, and it takes place thousands of feet below the waves. The 34-year-old actor will headline a brand new reimagining of the classic sci-fi saga Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and the character she plays comes with a ship that refuses to answer to anyone but her.

The news broke this week, and sci-fi fans are already calling it one of the most exciting casting announcements of the year. Here is everything we know about the project, the role, and why this could be a career-defining moment for Ridley.

The announcement that sent sci-fi fans into a frenzy

Deadline reported on Wednesday that Ridley has been cast as the lead in an eight-episode series for Paramount+, where she will also serve as an executive producer. Variety confirmed the details the same day.

The show is being developed at Legendary Television in association with the estate of Irwin Allen, the legendary producer behind the original property. Akiva Goldsman, the Oscar-winning writer of A Beautiful Mind and the co-creator of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, is writing the scripts and executive producing. Matt Shakman, who directed every episode of Marvel’s WandaVision and Apple’s Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, will direct and executive produce as well. A writers’ room is already underway, and the series was reportedly in development for months before the Warner Bros. and Paramount merger closed.

Rounding out the producing team are Jon Jashni, a producer on Pacific Rim and Godzilla vs. Kong, as an executive producer, with Derek Thielges co-producing.

Meet Lee Crane, the scientist the Seaview has been waiting for

Ridley will play Lee Crane, a brilliant ocean scientist pulled into a classified government program after a catastrophic Arctic expedition claims the life of her twin sister. At the center of the program sits the USS Seaview, a retro-futuristic submarine discovered entombed in Arctic ice, marked with strange symbols from a history that should not exist.

Here is the twist that has fans talking: the Seaview powers up only when Lee steps aboard. Thrust into command of a pressure-cooker crew and an uneasy alliance with government power brokers, she leads the vessel on daring undersea missions to contain mysterious forces leaking into our world, all while uncovering a hidden truth about the oceans, an erased chapter of human history, and the once-thought mythical city of Atlantis.

A submarine that chooses its own commander is a delicious hook, and it flips the original series on its head. In the 1960s show, Lee Crane was a male Navy captain played by David Hedison. Reimagining the character as a scientist driven by grief over her twin sister gives the story an emotional engine the original never had, and it puts Ridley right where she shines: carrying a big adventure with a wounded, determined heroine.

The powerhouse team behind the periscope

This is not a small, forgettable reboot. The names attached are heavyweights. Goldsman is one of the most trusted genre storytellers in Hollywood, with a resume that spans A Beautiful Mind, The Crowded Room, and the entire modern Star Trek television renaissance. Shakman, meanwhile, is one of the most in-demand directors in television, having steered WandaVision to Emmy glory and Marvel’s Fantastic Four: First Steps.

The ambition does not stop at one show. Goldsman is attached to a broader reimagining of Allen’s back catalogue at Legendary Television, with updates of Land of the Giants and The Time Tunnel also in development. If the Seaview surfaces successfully, fans could be looking at a full shared universe of modernized Irwin Allen classics.

The 1960s classic that started it all

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea began as a 1961 feature film directed by Irwin Allen himself, starring Walter Pidgeon, Barbara Eden, and Peter Lorre. It was a box-office hit and spun off into an ABC television series that ran for 110 episodes between 1964 and 1968, following the nuclear submarine Seaview and its crew through Cold War-era underwater adventures involving everything from giant sea monsters to sabotage.

It was one of the defining sci-fi shows of its decade, alongside Star Trek and Lost in Space, and its DNA is all over modern underwater adventure stories. A modern reimagining with today’s effects budgets, and a star like Ridley at the helm, is exactly the kind of revival the property deserves.

Why this is a career-defining move for Ridley

Here is the part that matters most. For all her fame, Ridley has never headlined a television series. Before she became a global star as Rey in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, she had small roles in British TV series like Mr Selfridge, Casualty, and Toast of London. Since then, she has largely stuck to the big screen, from Murder on the Orient Express to the Disney+ feature Young Woman and the Sea (2024), in which she played Channel swimmer Gertrude Ederle.

Back in 2022, she signed on to star in and executive produce The Christie Affair, a dramatization of Agatha Christie’s mysterious 11-day disappearance in 1926. That series has yet to materialize. Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea is now her first real shot at leading a prestige series, and the producing credit means she has a genuine stake in its creative direction.

It is also a smart tonal pivot. After years of being asked about nothing but lightsabers, Ridley gets to anchor an original-feeling genre world with its own mythology, while still playing to her strengths as a heroic, emotionally grounded lead.

Her schedule is absolutely packed

The Seaview is only one of several projects on Ridley’s horizon. She stars opposite Johnny Depp in Ebenezer, Ti West’s dark reimagining of A Christmas Carol, which opens in cinemas on November 13, 2026. She also has the romantic comedy The Last Resort, opposite Alden Ehrenreich, and the action thriller The Good Samaritan, both due in 2027.

And then there is the galaxy far, far away. Ridley is expected to return as Rey in Simon Kinberg and Jon Watts’ new Skywalker Saga trilogy, which is set to start filming in the next year or so. That means the same actor could be commanding a starship and a submarine within the same decade, and honestly, she could not have picked a better problem to have.

From Rey to Lee Crane, from saving the galaxy to saving the oceans, Daisy Ridley is about to remind everyone why she became a star in the first place. The Seaview is waiting. It just needed the right commander.

Source: Collider, reporting on Deadline and Variety’s October 21, 2026 exclusives.