CULTURE

Lily-Rose Depp Will Star in a New Movie That’s Basically Lord of the Flies in Space

Colin Farrell, Tye Sheridan, and Fionn Whitehead round out the cast.


Lily-Rose Depp lead
Francois Durand/Getty Images

Have you ever wondered what would happen if Simon, Piggy, Ralph, and the rest of the cast of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies were set loose in space? Us neither, but apparently, that’s precisely what we’re getting in the form of Neil Burger’s forthcoming science-fiction film Voyagers, announced Friday.

Burger, who, despite his name, is a very real and not at all made-up director, responsible for the Divergent trilogy and Limitless, wrote the script and will direct the film. Though still in preproduction, the film has already amassed a cast including Colin Farrell, Ready Player One star Tye Sheridan, and everyone’s favorite French scion Lily-Rose Depp, as well as Dunkirk star Fionn Whitehead. Depp, who, despite a handful of film credits to her name—including the Cannes hit The Dancer, with Soko—is probably still best known as one of the muses of the late Karl Lagerfeld and as the daughter of Vanessa Paradis and Johnny Depp, looks like she’s finally gunning for legitimate movie stardom, between this sci-fi adventure and that period drama with Robert Pattinson and Timothée Chalamet, whom she is apparently dating. (Lily-Rose Depp is also slated to appear in Dreamland, whose cast includes one Armie Hammer. What a small world, Hollywood.)

In addition to Depp, Farrell, et al., the filmmakers are reportedly in talks with Isaac Hempstead-Wright, who must be looking for a worthy follow-up to so much time spent as a Three-Eyed Raven; Chanté Adams of the sleeper Sundance hit Roxanne Roxanne; Kelvin Harrison of Mudbound; and Disney star Madison Hu. (Given that Hu retweeted the Deadline article after publication, it would seem like her participation in the film has moved from “advanced discussion” to “confirmed.” The other tentative cast members have yet to comment on Twitter.)

Little else is known about the film beyond its premise, which, according to Deadline, has been billed as a story about “30 children who are sent on a multigenerational mission to populate a new planet. After the captain of the mission is killed in mysterious circumstances, the young crew descends into chaos, aligning themselves into tribes as they surrender to their most feral impulses.” Sound like Lord of the Flies yet?

Voyagers is expected to begin filming in Romania this summer.