Culture 3 min read By Mason Emerson
Lucy Liu and Eloise Singer Expand The Pirate Queen Into Comic, Game and Tour
Lucy Liu, together with writer Eloise Singer, is developing the project "The Pirate Queen: No Safe Waters," built around the Chinese pirate leader Zheng Shi. Singer has also joined the BAFTA Breakthrough 2026 cohort.
Actress Lucy Liu and writer Eloise Singer are expanding their project "The Pirate Queen: No Safe Waters," which centers on the Chinese pirate leader Zheng Shi. New directions include a graphic novel that the co-creators wrote together, a new video game currently in development, and an international tour planned for next year. These three components are meant to turn a single story into a multi-format experience in which readers, players and viewers can encounter the same heroine through different paths.
The project is conceived as an interactive experience built around the story of Zheng Shi, one of the most famous women pirates in Chinese history. Singer is the author of the script, so she is responsible for the narrative foundation on which all the extensions rest. The graphic novel and the game complement each other, allowing a deeper exploration of the world in which Zheng Shi operates, while the international tour is intended to introduce the project to audiences in different countries. Liu and Singer are working on developing the story as co-creators, and each new format continues their joint work.
Meanwhile, Eloise Singer has joined the BAFTA Breakthrough 2026 cohort. The program recognizes talents who are on the threshold of, or have only recently achieved notable recognition in their fields, and the cohort includes 21 creators. Other participants named in this cohort include Imran Perretta and Ella Broccoli. Singer's participation in the program coincides with the development of her work on the project with Lucy Liu, and this recognition underscores that the scriptwriting for the story about Zheng Shi is drawing the attention of the professional community.
The BAFTA Breakthrough program is aimed at creators who are at a point of growth in their careers. Inclusion in its cohort usually means that a participant's creative work has already gained visibility but has not yet reached full maturity of recognition. For Singer, this means her script for "No Safe Waters" is viewed not only as part of a separate project with Liu, but as a broader body of work by a writer capable of working in many formats at once, from graphic prose to interactive games.
The expansion of the project across several platforms also reflects a trend long evident in the entertainment industry: a single original story increasingly moves between book, video game and live performance. For "The Pirate Queen," this means that fans who first get to know Zheng Shi through one format will be able to continue exploring her story in another. The international tour planned for next year is meant to be the next stage of this path and to take the project beyond a single market.
Source: variety.com
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