Inde Navarrette has landed her next major film role, joining Apple Original Films’ sci-fi thriller The Waffle House Index, with Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment producing. Alongside starring in the film, Navarrette will also serve as an executive producer, marking her first producing credit.
The film’s title takes its name from a real, informal measure used to gauge hurricane severity based on how well a local Waffle House restaurant is able to remain open during extreme weather. A green designation means the restaurant is operating normally, yellow indicates limited operations, often because of supply issues, while red means the restaurant has closed entirely because of unsafe conditions. The metric has also been referenced by FEMA in past disaster assessments.
The movie, however, takes that real-world concept in a wildly different direction. Navarrette will play a Waffle House waitress whose already difficult night shift spirals into chaos when a stranger carrying a gun arrives at the restaurant. The situation escalates into a mass flood, killer crocodiles, a nuclear explosion, a hidden magical bunker beneath the restaurant and an alien encounter, blending disaster-movie spectacle with outlandish genre elements.
The screenplay was written by Andrew Nunnelly, whose script for the project landed on the 2025 Black List, the annual industry survey highlighting some of Hollywood’s most highly regarded unproduced screenplays. Louis Paxton is directing the film. Paxton’s The Incomer won the Sundance NEXT Innovator Award and is scheduled for its own theatrical release later this month.
The Waffle House Index also continues Plan B Entertainment’s relationship with Apple Original Films following their collaboration on F1. The production company is led by Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner and has been behind projects including Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. Plan B is also preparing Sarah Polley’s adaptation of The Bell Jar.
For Navarrette, the project comes at a significant point in her rapidly expanding career. She recently broke out with Curry Barker’s horror film Obsession, which became a major box-office success, grossing more than $505 million worldwide against a reported production budget of just $750,000.
Her performance in Obsession has also put her into this year’s awards conversation. Variety recently reported that Focus Features is mounting an Oscar campaign for the film, with Navarrette being submitted in the Best Actress category. Barker is also being positioned for consideration in Best Director, Original Screenplay and Film Editing, among other categories.
Before Obsession, Navarrette appeared in the fourth and final season of Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why and had a recurring role on The CW’s Superman & Lois. She has also already secured another major franchise role, having been cast as Rogue in Marvel’s upcoming X-Men film.
No release date has been announced for The Waffle House Index. The project nevertheless adds another distinctive genre title to Navarrette’s rapidly developing slate, following her work in horror and her upcoming move into superhero territory. With its unusual premise and increasingly ambitious cast and production team, the Apple thriller represents another major step in what has become a remarkably fast-moving phase of the actor’s career.
