Alex Garland's next A24 sci-fi film lands Zendaya before Elden Ring

Zendaya is set to star in an untitled science fiction film written and directed by Alex Garland for A24. Deadline reported it on October 15, and the other trades carry the same details. Plot details are being kept under wraps. The one practical fact everyone agrees on is timing: Variety and The Hollywood Reporter both say the film is expected to shoot in 2027.

That is the whole announcement. No title, no logline, no co-stars, no release date. So I am not going to pretend to know what the movie is. What I can do is look at where this lands on the calendar for both of them, because the timing is the interesting part.

Garland's best sci-fi has been small rooms and a few faces. Putting the biggest star of 2026 in one of those rooms is a different kind of gamble than Elden Ring.

Garland and A24 have a long paper trail

A24 has been Garland's home for most of his directing career. The studio's own Ex Machina page still lists his 2015 debut, and the run since then includes Men, Civil War, and Warfare, which he co-directed with Ray Mendoza. His live-action Elden Ring adaptation is also an A24 film. Deadline gives that one a March 3, 2028 date, with Kit Connor, Cailee Spaeny, and Ben Whishaw in the cast. Variety adds that Elden Ring wrapped shooting on July 30.

Here is the director's track record in one place, built from those reports and A24's own film pages. The last column is my read on how each one sits in his career.

Where this leaves Zendaya

Her 2026 has been absurd. The Hollywood Reporter runs through it: Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, the A24 spring hit The Drama with Robert Pattinson, and the final season of Euphoria. Dune: Part Three, with her back as Chani, is due in December. She is still attached to Barry Jenkins' Ronnie Spector biopic Be My Baby, also at A24, and THR says she voices the daughter of Shrek and Fiona in Shrek 5 next summer. A Garland shoot in 2027 slots in after all of that.

The other wrinkle is 28 Years Later. Garland wrote 28 Days Later and returned for 28 Years Later and The Bone Temple. Variety reports that Danny Boyle, speaking at the London Film Festival, said Garland had written a "fantastic script" for a third film but that it is "on the back burner at the moment" while Garland works on Elden Ring. A new original sci-fi feature in 2027 likely pushes that further out. If you were waiting on the next infected sprint, this is not great news.

What is confirmed, and what is not

• Confirmed: Zendaya stars; Garland writes and directs; A24 produces; shooting in 2027.
• Not announced: title, plot, other cast, budget, release date.
• Already dated nearby: Dune: Part Three in December 2026, Elden Ring on March 3, 2028.
• Likely casualty: the third 28 Years Later, already described by Boyle as on hold.

Big franchise and big filmmaker news has been stacking up on the Movies desk. Our Jon Watts Star Wars piece was about a studio handing a franchise to a known director, and our Narnia trailer breakdown looked at Greta Gerwig moving into fantasy at scale. If you care about Garland's game side, our Last of Us Season 3 note covers how game adaptations are being staffed right now.

My take: the most interesting version of this film is the small one. Garland's sharpest work, Ex Machina and Men especially, is a handful of people in a confined space with an idea pressing on them. He already has his giant fantasy epic in the can. If this is him going back to a contained, strange, talky sci-fi film and giving Zendaya the kind of role Alicia Vikander got in Ex Machina, I am in on day one. If it turns out to be another huge production, fine, but I would bet on the smaller version, and nothing announced today argues against it.

How we made this: researched and drafted with AI assistance. Sources are linked in the piece.