Drew Barrymore has closed a deal to direct The End, an end-of-the-world drama set up at Warner Bros.

The project takes a 180-degree approach to the usual apocalypse scenario and instead focuses on several people as they reconcile their fate on Earth’s last day. End is meant to be uplifting and humanistic rather than a downer, a meditation not on death but on life.

Among the storylines is a sixtysomething radio personality in London intent on broadcasting until the end, a father trying to make it through the chaos in Tokyo to reach his wife and baby and a teenage couple in the American Midwest being pulled in different directions by their families.

The script is written by Aron Eli Coleite, a writer-producer who worked on TV’s Heroes and the short-lived adventure show The River.

Jesse Ehrman is overseeing for the studio, which hopes to make it for a modest price.

Barrymore, repped by CAA, would not take a role as she did in her directorial debut, the well-regarded female-centric roller derby flick Whip It, which starred Ellen Page and Kristen Wiig, among others.

She also is attached to direct and produce the young-adult thriller Heist Society, also for Warners, and How to Be Single, set up at New Line.

hollywoodreporter.com