Daisy Ridley Leads Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea Reimagining at Paramount+

Paramount+ has ordered an eight-episode series reimagining Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, with Daisy Ridley in the lead, Variety reported. Ridley, best known for the Star Wars films The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, will also executive produce. Being an executive producer means overseeing a show's production rather than working on set every day.

The new version is built on the 1961 film of the same name, which was created by Irwin Allen. Allen's 1964 ABC television series followed, and it ran for four seasons with Richard Basehart in the lead.

Ridley plays Lee Crane, an ocean scientist. After a catastrophic Arctic expedition kills her twin sister, Crane is pulled into a classified government programme. The story centres on the USS Seaview, a retro-futuristic submarine found entombed in ice. It powers up only when Crane steps aboard.

Variety describes missions under the sea to contain mysterious forces leaking into the world. Along the way, Crane uncovers a hidden truth about the oceans, an erased chapter of human history, and the mythical city of Atlantis.

Akiva Goldsman, an Oscar winner for A Beautiful Mind, is writing the series and will executive produce it alongside Ridley. Matt Shakman will also executive produce and direct. Jon Jashni is an executive producer and Derek Thielges is a co-producer. Legendary Television is making the show in association with the Irwin Allen estate.

The project is still in development, the stage where a show is being written and planned before filming begins. Deadline reported that a writers' room is already underway, citing people close to the production. A writers' room is the group of writers who break down stories and draft scripts together.

Deadline first reported Goldsman's involvement in February 2025, when he was set to reimagine three classic Irwin Allen science-fiction series.

Variety reported that the Voyage project had been in the works for months before recent changes at Skydance, the parent company of Paramount+.

For viewers, the appeal of a reimagining is that it can keep the original's premise while changing the people and the setting. Here, the submarine and the Atlantis mystery stay, while the lead character and the story around her are new. For the crew and writers, the work now is building the scripts and the production plan that will decide when the series is ready to be seen.