The Impossible, Juan Antonio Bayona's dramatisation of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, may be nearly a year from our screens, but, judging by these new stills, the Spanish director's latest is already taking shape on an impressive scale.

Based on the true-life story of a Spanish family caught up in the event, The Impossible follows the fate of a holidaying family whose Thai hotel is directly in the path of the colossal tidal wave. Mum Naomi Watts, dad Ewan McGregor and their three boys (newcomer Tom Holland among them) are separated and must endure the wave's horrific aftermath in the hope of being reunited. Here, Watts and Holland survey the carnage post-tsunami.

At first glance, Bayona's latest doesn't appear to share DNA with his last film, 2007's cracking haunted house flick The Orphanage. Wrong, says the director, who's focusing again on grief and suffering with a family unit. "It's more or less the same," he tells Empire. "It's about how you deal with pain, how you overcome death, what is family."

Currently in post-production, The Impossible doesn't have a release date yet, but there is an early Spanish trailer over at Twitch.