Jennifer Lawrence teams with Adam McKay for Netflix asteroid comedy 'Don't Look Up'

After a relatively quiet few years in terms of movie roles, Jennifer Lawrence is quickly filling up her dance card, with her latest project a Netflix comedy helmed by The Big Short filmmaker Adam McKay.

Lawrence will play one of a pair of astronomers desperately trying to warn mankind of an approaching asteroid in the film, titled Don’t Look Up.

It’s a movie with a timely environmental message, which very much ties into the M.O. of McKay as a topical storyteller.

Read more: Roland Emmerich says Hollywood should tell more climate stories

The project is due to film in April and Netflix intends to release Don’t Look Up on the platform before the end of the year.

McKay’s last two films — Vice and The Big Short — have been major awards season players, clocking up 13 Oscar nominations and two wins between them.

With a former Oscar winner for Silver Linings Playbook as his lead, McKay could be booking a ticket to the Academy Awards yet again.

Lawrence has a busy year ahead, having only appeared in three movies since 2016’s sci-fi blockbuster Passengers.

Her last project was a brief final appearance as shape-shifting mutant Mystique in X-Men: Dark Phoenix.

Read more: Lawrence expresses Passengers disappointment

She has recently wrapped filming on A24 drama Red, White and Water with Brian Tyree Henry and has signed on to play a mob informant in Paolo Sorrentino’s adaptation of the non-fiction book Mob Girl.

The 29-year-old is also due to portray the last woman executed for murder in Iceland for Luca Guadagnino in Burial Rites.

McKay previously described Don’t Look Up to Deadline as a “dark satire in the school of Wag the Dog, Doctor Strangelove and Network”.

Reacting to the casting news, the 51-year-old director said he was “thrilled” to be working with Lawrence.

Read more: McKay says Martin Scorsese should watch Thor: Ragnarok

He added: “She’s what folks in the 17th century used to call ‘a dynamite act’.

“And the fact that Netflix sees this movie as a worldwide comedy sets the bar high for me and my team in an exciting and motivating way.”