Apple Original Films has acquired *The Waffle House Index*, a high-concept sci-fi thriller that will star and be executive produced by Inde Navarrette. Plan B Entertainment is producing the project from a screenplay by Andrew Nunnelly that landed on the 2025 Black List. Louis Paxton, whose Sundance NEXT Innovator Award-winning feature *The Incomer* arrives in theaters later this month, is attached to direct. Sources say the script deal reached seven figures.
The announcement arrives as Navarrette’s profile continues its rapid rise. The Tucson-born actress drew strong notices for her lead turn in the 2025 horror film *Obsession* and was recently cast as Rogue in Marvel’s forthcoming *X-Men* feature. *The Waffle House Index* marks her first producing credit.
Nunnelly’s script uses the real-world “Waffle House Index”—an informal FEMA-linked gauge of disaster severity based on whether a 24-hour Waffle House location is fully open, serving a limited menu, or closed—as both title and jumping-off point. The story follows a waitress whose already difficult night shift takes a sharp turn when an armed stranger enters the restaurant. From there the film escalates through a mass flood, killer crocodiles, a nuclear explosion, a hidden bunker beneath the diner, and an encounter with aliens.
The combination of grounded diner-night tension and increasingly outlandish genre turns places the project in the same conversation as other recent high-concept originals that mix everyday settings with large-scale spectacle. Apple’s pickup of the package, with Plan B behind it, signals confidence that the script’s tonal swings can be realized on a substantial scale.
No release window or additional cast has been announced. Navarrette is expected to remain attached as both lead and executive producer as the film moves toward production.
