Robert Pattinson and Denzel Washington Join Forces With The Two Popes Director on a Major New Film

Two heavy hitters just lined up for a Netflix heist movie, and it sounds like the kind of slick, twisty crime story that makes you pause whatever algorithm is feeding you and actually watch.

What is 'Here Comes the Flood'?

Robert Pattinson and Denzel Washington are teaming up for 'Here Comes the Flood,' a heist thriller at Netflix directed by Fernando Meirelles and written by Simon Kinberg. Cameras started rolling on November 3, 2025 in New Jersey. The hook: an offbeat bank robbery that ropes in a guard, a teller, and a master thief, and the whole thing unfolds out of order. If you like your capers non-linear and character-forward, that’s the pitch.

• Leads: Robert Pattinson, Denzel Washington, Daisy Edgar-Jones
• Director: Fernando Meirelles (nominated for four Oscars for 'City of God')
• Writer: Simon Kinberg (Netflix bought his original script in 2020 after a seven-figure bidding war during peak streamer land-grab mode)
• Filming: Began Nov. 3, 2025 in New Jersey
• Story setup: An unconventional bank heist seen through a non-linear structure that centers a guard, a teller, and a seasoned thief
• Key milestone: Washington’s first time headlining a Netflix film (he previously produced 'Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom' and 'The Piano Lesson' for the streamer)
• Pattinson x Netflix: He’s back with the platform after 'The King' and 'The Devil All the Time'
• Supporting cast: Danai Gurira, Sean Harris, Moisés Arias, Justin Kirk
• Schedule: Target wrap in late January 2026; release penciled for late 2026 or early 2027

Pattinson’s headspace: from Gotham to grand larceny

Pattinson has talked before about where he took Batman emotionally in 2022, which is useful context for why he’s interesting in a morally gray heist story. His Bruce was less billionaire playboy and more frayed-nerve insomniac, which he openly framed as a guy barely holding it together.

"Normally, in all the other movies, Bruce goes away, trains, and returns to Gotham believing in himself, thinking, I’m gonna change things here. But in this, it’s sort of implied that he’s had a bit of a breakdown."

He said that during the press run for 'The Batman,' and the rest of his read tracked: two years into vigilantism and crime is actually worse, so the guy starts questioning his methods and his sanity. He called his take a trauma study, deliberately ditching the swagger: a weirdo as Bruce and a weirdo as Batman. He also wasn’t sugarcoating the workload, calling it the hardest job he’s ever done and describing the movie itself as, bluntly, sad.

For the stats-minded: 'The Batman' was directed by Matt Reeves and produced by Warner Bros. Pictures, DC Films, 6th & Idaho, and Dylan Clark Productions. It pulled a 7.8/10 on IMDb, an 85% score on Rotten Tomatoes, and made about $772 million worldwide. Not a bad runway into a heist lead.

Denzel, Meirelles, and a very unexpected domino effect

Meirelles pairing with Washington is a quietly huge match of taste and craft. Washington’s a two-time Oscar winner who rarely phones it in, and Meirelles knows his way around tense, human-scale crime storytelling.

Also, a fun detour that’s too good not to flag: a Denzel film accidentally led to a political family. While filmmaker Mira Nair was researching 'Mississippi Masala' in Uganda, she met political scientist Mahmood Mamdani. Washington starred in that 1991 movie as a carpet cleaner who falls for the daughter of an Indian-Ugandan immigrant. Nair and Mamdani married that same year, the film released, and their son, Zohran Mamdani, was born.

Fast-forward: Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic primary for New York City mayor in June 2025, beating Andrew Cuomo, and is now mayor-elect. Before politics, he worked as an assistant director on his mother’s 2016 Disney film 'Queen of Katwe.' Lupita Nyong'o endorsed his campaign, and author Salman Rushdie backed him too, framing the race as a choice between the old way of doing politics and a newer one. Wild chain of events, all springing from a Denzel movie.

Bottom line

'Here Comes the Flood' sounds like a classy thief story with actual personality: non-linear structure, prickly characters, and a filmmaker who knows momentum. Pattinson brings that haunted energy; Washington brings the gravitas. Netflix is aiming for late 2026 or early 2027. I’m in. You?