Drowning: The Rescue Of Flight 1421 Plot, Director, Producer, And More Details

There aren't many things that Hollywood loves more than nerve-wracking disaster films and movies based on best-selling novels. Very few projects come along that happen to fall into both of those categories, but "Drowning: The Rescue of Flight 1421" is one of them, with the forthcoming film taking Hollywood by storm in late November when it was announced that a high-profile director had signed on to make it.

Not many details about "Drowning" have officially been revealed, but the movie has nonetheless emerged as one of the more noteworthy and exciting book-to-screen adaptations in development. While there's still a chance that progress on the film could be stalled in the future by certain unforeseen hurdles, it's about as well-positioned for success as a movie can be. Assuming that everything goes fairly smoothly behind the scenes, it may not even be long before audiences can see it on the big screen.

With all that in mind, here's everything viewers should know about "Drowning," including its plot, director, producers, and more.

While no official details regarding the potential release date of "Drowning: The Rescue of Flight 1421" have been revealed yet, the fact that the film has already secured several key members of its creative team increases its chances of not only coming to fruition but also making it out of its early development stages at a fairly fast pace.

Variety reported in April that Warner Bros. emerged victorious from an intense bidding war for the rights to the adaptation — one that pitted the studio against competitors like Nicole Kidman, Steven Spielberg, Apple, Paramount, Legendary, and Universal Television — after unveiling an offer that could end up paying the rights holders of the film's source material a total of $3 million. It's therefore likely that it will do everything it can to ensure that "Drowning" makes it to the big screen as soon as possible.

"Drowning: The Rescue of Flight 1421" focuses on the passengers of its titular airplane, which crashes into the Pacific Ocean just six minutes after taking off. When one of the plane's engines subsequently explodes, the vessel is flooded and those who survived the crash are forced to close its doors. Despite their best efforts, the plane ultimately sinks 200 feet beneath the surface of the ocean with a total of 12 people still trapped inside.

Among the passengers are an engineer and his 11-year-old daughter, whose mother, the engineer's estranged wife, is part of an elite rescue team working to save them before time runs out and the sunken aircraft inevitably falls off the edge of the undersea cliff that initially stopped its descent beneath the ocean. In other words, "Drowning" is simultaneously a domestic drama and a pulse-pounding, disaster-based thriller.

As reported by Variety, Paul Greengrass has officially signed on to direct "Drowning: The Rescue of Flight 1421." Assuming everything goes according to plan, the film will be the director's first feature effort since the Tom Hanks-led 2020 Western "News of the World," which received four Oscar nominations following its release.

Greengrass is perhaps best known for his contributions to the "Bourne" franchise, having famously directed 2004's "The Bourne Supremacy," 2007's "The Bourne Ultimatum," and 2016's "Jason Bourne." His work on those installments, in which his ability to combine intimate character drama with intense action is on full display, played a huge role in boosting the overall popularity and success of the series as a whole.

The director has also helmed a handful of truly harrowing thrillers, including 2018's "22 July," 2013's "Captain Phillips," and 2006's "United 93," the latter for which he received an Oscar nomination. All three movies boast an unshakable sense of authenticity that just makes the intensity of their real-life stories all the more unbearable at points, so while "Drowning" isn't based on a true story, Greengrass' visceral, gritty directorial style should make the stakes of its plot seem real enough for audiences to become invested.

In addition to directing, Paul Greengrass will also write "Drowning: The Rescue of Flight 1421." Notably, the high-profile adaptation isn't the first movie that Greengrass has both written and directed — he also received screenwriting credits for "News of the World" and "Jason Bourne" and is the sole writer of "22 July," "United 93," and "Bloody Sunday," all of which is to say that Greengrass isn't breaking new ground for himself by any means by adopting multiple roles for "Drowning."

The filmmaker is also set to produce the movie, alongside Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group's Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy. This consequently marks a reunion between Greengrass and De Luca, who earned an Oscar nomination for producing "Captain Phillips." Shane Salerno, the Story Factory, and Greg Goodman are all on board to produce the movie as well, while Amy Lord and T.J. Newman will executive produce.

"Drowning: The Rescue of Flight 1421" is an adaptation of the acclaimed, best-selling novel of the same name by author T.J. Newman. Published in May, the book is Newman's sophomore authorial effort, the follow-up to "Falling," which, much like "Drowning," made waves in the literary world and ended up garnering the attention of Hollywood. In fact, the author has been hired to pen the script for a feature film adaptation of "Falling" for Universal, and the subsequent sale of the movie rights to "Drowning" has only cemented her status as a major name in Hollywood.

Newman used her experience as a flight attendant to bring a specific perspective to "Falling" and "Drowning," both of which focus on flights gone terribly, terribly wrong. "Any time I board a plane, I still want to get up and collect trash or help someone put their bag in an overhead bin," she confessed to Variety. "I have to remind myself: You can sit and order a drink instead of serving it." The good news is, should Paul Greengrass' adaptation of "Drowning" prove to be as exciting as it sounds, the odds are high that Newman's profile will continue to rise.