Bryce Dallas Howard is set to direct and produce Walt Disney Studios’ reboot of "Flight of the Navigator", which reimagines the original 1986 film with a female lead. The new movie, which marks Howard’s feature directorial debut, is slated to premiere exclusively on Disney Plus.

The film will reimagine the story with a female lead. The 1986 original told the story of a 12-year-old boy who is abducted by a UFO and reappears eight years later at the same age, with no recollection of what happened. Randal Kleiser directed, and it was written by Mark H. Baker, Michael Burton and Matt MacManus.

While Howard is known for her work in front of the camera - she is one of the stars of the Jurassic World franchise and starred as Gwen Stacy in Spider-Man 3 - she has been slowly making moves to build a new career as a director.

After helming several shorts and a documentary, Howard made her TV debut directing two episodes of Star Wars series The Mandalorian, made by Disney-owned Lucasfilm. She also has an episode of The Book of Boba Fett under her belt as well; that will stream on Disney+ this winter. Navigator would serve as her feature directorial debut.

The original movie, starring Joey Cramer, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Veronica Cartwright, follows a boy who travels eight years into the future from 1978 and has an adventure with an intelligent, wisecracking alien ship, named Max. Paul Reubens provided the voice of Max in the film which was released in late July 1986 grossing an uninflated $18.6M at the domestic box office.

Source: Press Release