Ron Howard’s seafaring Hollywood epic ‘In The Heart of The Sea’ - the true story of a ship destroyed by a whale, that inspired ‘Moby Dick’ - has signed onboard Irish actors Brendan Gleeson, Cillian Murphy and Sam Keeley.
The role marks another major coup for Sam Keeley, following his breakthrough in ‘What Richard Did’ and upcoming part in the Gareth Edwards produced ‘Monsters: Dark Continent’.
‘In The Heart of The Sea’ is based on the book by Nathaniel Philbrick, which follows the crew of a whaling ship attacked by a sperm whale – that fuelled the imagination of Herman Melville in writing his classic novel ‘Moby Dick’.
According to records, the surviving crew members of the Nantucket whaling ship the Essex drifted at sea for 90 days in lifeboats before eventually resorting to cannibalism.
Brendan Gleeson is set to play an older version of one of the surviving crewmembers, who is interviewed years later by Melville, while Sam Keeley will play one of the crew members onboard the ship when disaster strikes.
Other cast members include Chris Hemsworth (‘Thor’), Benjamin Walker (‘Flags of our Fathers’) and Tom Holland (‘The Impossible’).
Producers on the film are Marshall Herskovitz, Joe Roth and Paula Weinstein, with executive producers Sarah Bradshaw and Palak Patel.
The screenplay is by Charles Leavitt (‘Blood Diamond’) and director of photography is Anthony Dod Mantle (‘Slumdog Millionaire’).
Production will start this September in London before moving to Tenerife in the Canary Islands.
