New Line Cinema/Warner Bros.With just two films, Zach Cregger has already established himself as one of the most inventive (and demented) minds working in studio horror right now. His first film, Barbarian, sold itself under the radar as a familiar enough thriller about a double-booking at an Airbnb with a maybe-possible murderer, only to win critics and audiences over with a literal descent into a much stranger and more horrific nightmare with a timely critique of violent misogyny in its differing forms. His follow-up, last year’s Weapons, was comparatively a more enigmatic, structurally complex mystery, centered around a missing class of elementary school students and the varying perspectives of the community left behind in their wake – it was a massive success for Warner Bros. and won Amy Madigan the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.After releasing two highly regarded movies back to back, Cregger shows absolutely no signs of slowing down. He’s already releasing a greatly anticipated reboot of the Resident Evil film franchise in September of this year, and he’s also re-teaming with Warner Bros. and New Line to co-write a prequel to Weapons, focused on Madigan’s sinister and inexplicable Aunt Gladys. One would think he’d have his hands full, but now he’s added another project to his plate, one in partnership with a Hollywood legend.After the release of this year’s Resident Evil, which will star Weapons actor Austin Abrams, Cregger is already working on something new. | Warner Bros.According to Deadline, in the last moments of Warner Bros. CinemaCon presentation, it was announced that Zach Cregger would be writing and directing The Flood, an original science fiction thriller produced by Stephen Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment and distributed by Warner Bros. and New Line. There are no plot details on the movie at this point, but it does have a release date of August 11th, 2028.One of Cregger’s greatest strengths as an artist has been his versatility. He started on IFC’s shock-and-awe sketch comedy show The Whitest Kids U’ Know and co-directed the 2009 comedy Miss March with his late friend and WKUK collaborator Trevor Moore, before pivoting into pulpier genre cinema with his latest films. Switching gears over to sci-fi feels like a natural choice for him (Jordan Peele, another comedian turned horror filmmaker, did similarly with Nope), and even in his horror films, he finds moments to blend in his experience with comedy, so who’s to say that this upcoming project won’t also have horror elements?Both of Cregger’s last two movies have succeeded at weaving together tones and genres. | Warner Bros.With the increasing success of his previous films, each one singular and unconventional in its own ways, it’s safe to say that Zach Cregger has carte blanche as of right now to keep bringing fresh ideas to life, and alongside horror, science fiction is one of the best places to do that in studio filmmaking. With the backing of Spielberg’s production company, himself a veteran of the sci-fi genre, as well as Warner Bros. and New Line, it stands to reason that Cregger’s next project is a vision as bold and surprising as Barbarian and Weapons – hopefully it’s not too long before we find out exactly what that is in more detail.The Flood releases on August 11th, 2028.