Alabama director Adam Wingard’s Onslaught casts UFC star Alex Pereira

Alabama-raised director Adam Wingard turned a new action thriller into a hometown story with broader reach, landing UFC champion Alex Pereira in Onslaught and putting another high-energy genre project on the map for Alabama filmmakers. The casting gives the film an instant crossover appeal, but the bigger signal for the state is clear: a director who grew up in west Alabama and claims Birmingham as his hometown is still building commercially ambitious films from a career rooted in Alabama indie work.

A24 acquired Onslaught after a competitive auction and lined up Wingard with his frequent collaborator Simon Barrett. The studio planned to co-finance the film and release it worldwide, with principal photography originally set for fall 2024. By November 2024, production had started and Drew Starkey had joined the cast alongside Adria Arjona and Dan Stevens, while Pereira was still in talks for the role that would ultimately bring a UFC star into Wingard’s action world.

For Alabama’s film community, the pairing matters because Wingard did not arrive at this level by accident. He built part of his early career on tiny Birmingham productions, including the $2,000 feature Pop Skull, before moving through horror and action titles such as You’re Next and The Guest. From there, he climbed into the studio arena with Godzilla vs. Kong and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, proving he could handle large-scale spectacle without losing the sharp genre instincts that defined his early work.

That arc makes Onslaught especially notable. The film was positioned as a return to Wingard’s horror-action roots, and Pereira fits that lane with uncommon force. UFC identified him as the UFC light heavyweight champion in 2025, and later described him as a former middleweight and light heavyweight champion. Few casting choices carry that kind of built-in physicality and mainstream recognition.

Wingard’s path has long been tied to Alabama’s indie-film scene, and Onslaught extends that connection into a bigger commercial space. A director who once made ultra-low-budget films in Birmingham is now fronting an A24 action title with global release plans and a UFC headliner in the mix, a combination that could draw new attention to Alabama talent, financing and genre projects built to play far beyond the state.