Daisy Ridley is trading a galaxy far, far away for a submarine under the ice. Paramount+ and Legendary Television are developing a reimagined Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, with Ridley attached to lead and executive produce.
The series is based on Irwin Allen’s 1961 feature film and the ABC television series that followed. Legendary Television is producing in association with the Irwin Allen Estate.
What the new Voyage is about
Ridley plays Lee Crane, here reimagined as a brilliant ocean scientist. The story kicks off with a catastrophic Arctic expedition that claims the life of her twin sister. Lee is then pulled into a classified government programme centred on the USS Seaview, a retro-futuristic submarine found entombed in ice and marked with symbols from a history that should not exist.
The submarine powers up only when Lee steps aboard. That makes her commander of a pressure-cooker crew and an uneasy government alliance. The missions are undersea, the stakes are global, and the deeper mystery points to an erased chapter of human history and the once-mythical city of Atlantis.
Talent behind the package
Akiva Goldsman is writing and executive producing. Matt Shakman is directing and executive producing. Jon Jashni is also on board as an executive producer, with Derek Thielges as co-producer. Deadline reports a writers room is currently underway, which means the creative work has begun even though the project has not been announced as a series order.
The packaging matters. Ridley brings global recognition from the Star Wars sequel trilogy as Rey, plus television experience in Mr Selfridge, Younger and Casualty. Goldsman and Shakman give the series a credible genre spine through Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and WandaVision respectively.
Why this matters for the streaming business
This is another test of the legacy IP playbook. Paramount+ is pairing a known title with a franchise-level lead to lower the cost of getting attention in a crowded originals slate. The title has more than six decades of recognition, but recognition is not demand. The show still has to prove that a 1960s undersea adventure can feel like a current streaming event, not a nostalgic curio.
For media planners and entertainment marketers, the useful signal is early: Paramount+ is committing development resources to a big-canvas sci-fi adventure with a female lead.
- Status: in development with a writers room open; no series order or premiere date yet.
- Key talent: Ridley leads and executive produces; Goldsman writes; Shakman directs.
- Rights base: Legendary Television and the Irwin Allen Estate, drawing on the 1961 film and ABC series.
- Pitch: a submarine mystery tied to Atlantis, a dead sibling and a hidden human history.
What to watch next
The next real data points are a series order, episode count and budget range. None of that is public yet. Until Paramount+ commits, treat this as an early indicator of the platform’s originals strategy rather than a reason to move a media plan. If the full order lands, the next question will be whether the show can pull a younger streaming audience without abandoning the older-skewing brand that made the title famous.
Source: Deadline
