Ron Howard-directed drama adds Cillian Murphy and Benjamin Walker.
Hollywood film star and proud Corkonian, Cillian Murphy (‘Transcendence,’ ‘Inception’) and Benjamin Walker (‘Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter’) have become the latest additions to the cast of Ron Howard’s fact-based drama ‘In The Heart of the Sea.’
With Chris Hemsworth and Tom Holland already on board to star, the film is an adaptation of the 2011 novel by Nathaniel Philbrick and tells the tale of Nantucket whaling ship the ‘Essex.’ In 1819, the ‘Essex’ left port for the South Pacific with twenty crew members aboard. In the middle of the South Pacific the ship was rammed and sunk by an angry sperm whale. The crew drifted for more than ninety days in three tiny whaleboats, succumbing to weather, hunger, disease, and ultimately turning to drastic measures in the fight for survival.
Deadline, who broke the news of the new additions, hears that Murphy will play Matthew Joy, second mate on the whale ship Essex. Walker would be playing George Pollard, the arrogant privileged son of a whaling family who attempts to use his family name to gain captaincy, and who butts heads with shipmate Chase (Hemsworth), who knows the job and the sea much better.
The script for the adaptation comes from ‘Blood Diamond’ scribe Charles Leavitt. Howard’s Imagine Entertainment partner Brian Grazer, Joe Roth, Paula Weinstein and William Ward will produce.