Lucy Liu's 'The Pirate Queen' Sets International Tour for 2026

By Grace Kim

Lucy Liu and Eloise Singer will take "The Pirate Queen: No Safe Waters," their immersive experience about the Chinese pirate leader Cheng Shih, on an international tour next year, Singer tells Variety. The pair have also co-written a graphic novel and are developing a new game.

The announcement lands as Singer, the project's writer and director, joins the 2026 BAFTA Breakthrough U.K. cohort. BAFTA named her to the Netflix-supported program for emerging screen talent on Nov. 4, in the games category, for "No Safe Waters."

The franchise retells the story of Cheng Shih, a powerful female pirate who commanded the South China Sea at the start of the 18th century. "No Safe Waters" played in the Cannes Film Festival's Immersive Competition this year, with Liu narrating and producing alongside Singer. It follows the original 2024 VR version of "The Pirate Queen," which earned an Emmy nomination.

Why Cheng Shih?

Liu says the pirate leader won respect through negotiation and leadership "in a world designed to exclude women entirely," and she defies nearly every stereotype historically placed on Asian women in storytelling.

"She was politically astute, ruthless when necessary, deeply strategic, and completely self-determined. Stories like hers remind us that history has always contained powerful, complex women – they were never centered in mainstream narratives," Liu tells Variety. "That's beginning to change, and I think audiences are hungry for stories that feel more expansive."

What changes between the two versions?

The mechanics differ. The 2024 piece was built for a headset; the new one fills a shared room with projection, sound and movement. Audiences stand among storms and fleets as dragons move beneath their feet.

Liu doesn't appear on screen. She says voice carries a different kind of responsibility in immersive work, guiding atmosphere and movement at once. "In film, the camera captures a glance or physical gesture to communicate subtext, but here the voice can help create emotional architecture," she says.

Singer has spent a decade on "The Pirate Queen," the last three years of it with Liu. "I feel really lucky to be making it with Lucy. She's thrown her heart and soul into this alongside me, and getting to build this world together has been one of the most special parts of the journey," she says. "I love seeing how one story can take on a whole new life across different formats, each offering audiences a completely different way to experience it."

Liu frames her role as more than a voice rental. "We're building 'The Pirate Queen' as a larger storyworld together, so it was never just about lending my voice to one experience," she says. "As a producer, I wanted to help support the integrity of the story and the larger creative vision. I'm always drawn to work that challenges convention and creates space for voices and histories that haven't been fully explored, and Cheng Shih's story deserves that kind of scale."

What does the BAFTA nod signal?

For Singer, the selection validates immersive work as a category. "It's still a bit of a pinch-me moment. It's something I've aspired to for such a long time, so to be selected is a little surreal, and to have BAFTA and Netflix recognize what we've created with 'The Pirate Queen' is incredibly special," she says. "I'm especially proud that it's for an immersive project. We started with a story we really believed in and wanted to bring it to life in a completely different way, something audiences could truly step inside and experience."

A friend who completed the program before her told her to make the most of every opportunity. "So that's what I intend to do! I'm really looking forward to meeting other filmmakers and finding ways to take over the world together," she says.

Singer says this is the first year she has felt a scalable, sustainable future for immersive storytelling. "I've been genuinely encouraged by the level of distribution interest around 'The Pirate Queen.' It feels like there is a real appetite for immersive work now," she says.

Liu sees the form as both an extension of filmmaking and something genuinely new. "It grows from cinematic language but it also asks the audience to participate differently. That changes the relationship between story and viewer," she says. "We're still discovering the language of immersive storytelling which is what makes this moment so exciting creatively."

Singer's background is in film and TV, and alongside new immersive work she is developing scripted projects. "I've always been drawn to stories about people who challenge expectations, whether they've been overlooked by history, underestimated by others, or simply refused to play by the rules," she says. "Ultimately, I want to keep telling stories I really believe in and finding the most exciting ways to bring them to life."

With the tour, the graphic novel and the game all moving forward, 2026 will test whether one pirate's story can anchor a genuine cross-format storyworld.