‘Lost’ Star Teases His “Scary” New Post-Apocalyptic Thriller Book Adaptation [Exclusive]

It’s been 12 years since Josh Holloway was last seen on the big screen. After appearing in 2014’s Sabotage, which put him on a killer team with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sam Worthington, Terrence Howard, and Joe Manganiello, he’s remained on television, enjoying roles in the megahit western Yellowstone and the USA sci-fi series Colony. Coming off an acclaimed turn as the lead of HBO’s crime thriller Duster, however, that’s about to change. Last year, he was officially attached to star in an MPI Original Films adaptation of One Second After, the New York Times bestselling novel by William R. Forstchen from 2009. When a question was asked about the project during a Fan Expo Portland panel over the weekend, moderated by Collider’s Maggie Lovitt, he was able to get into the juicy details of the chilling story.

“Yes! That’s the movie I just finished,” Holloway shared. “One Second After. Yes, it’s a scary concept, isn’t it?” The film casts the Lost star as a former military officer turned college professor named John Matherson, who’s caught in the middle of a post-apocalyptic disaster and steps up to help his North Carolina community survive. An electromagnetic pulse has left the nation without power and with much of its infrastructure destroyed, which Holloway teased makes for a frighteningly realistic calamity that quickly turns into a waking nightmare for the survivors who haven’t turned to desperate means. He continued:

“One Second After is based on a bestselling book, and it’s about basically a terrorist attack over America where they blow up a nuclear bomb above the atmosphere, so it’s an EMP. It kills everything with a chip, so no one’s cars work past 1970, or whenever they put the chips in, right? No phones, no nothing. And then, within a couple months, things go really bad, and people start eating each other. There’s this crazy big raiding group of like 500 people that are coming through towns and burning them and killing everyone.”

‘One Second After’ Casts a ‘The Walking Dead’ Alum As the Villain

One Second After is built as a portrayal of the fragile nature of society, forcing Matherson and his community into one life-threatening decision after another to survive a world in chaos. It also has a talented group around Holloway, including two former and current Marvel stars in X-Men: The Last Stand‘s Famke Janssen and Thunderbolts‘ Hannah John-Kamen, alongside Mary McDonnell, Johnna Dias-Watson, John Eric Bentley, and Kennedy Moyer.

One co-star that Holloway thought to highlight, however, was Negan’s bloodthirsty, usurping right-hand man on The Walking Dead. “And Steven Ogg, who’s here, is the villain. So I just worked with him, he’s amazing.” Whether playing the frightening Simon, who somehow managed to be even more ruthless than Jeffrey Dean Morgan‘s bat-wielding antagonist, or voicing the volatile Trevor Phillips in Grand Theft Auto V, he’s shown himself to be an intimidating presence perfect for leading a band of raiders hell-bent on spreading destruction and death.

The film will mark the directorial debut of Scott Rogers, who has made a name for himself as a stunt coordinator and second unit director on everything from Sam Raimi‘s Spider-Man 2 to John Wick: Chapter 4 and Tron: Ares. Penning the script, meanwhile, is none other than Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski. Rounding out the team are producers Rob Pfaltzgraff and Nick Reid for MPI and Matt Kennedy for Startling Inc., with the novel’s author Forstchen on board as an executive producer.

A release date has yet to be set for One Second After. Stay tuned here at Collider for more on the film and what comes next for Holloway as updates come out.