Just how do you make a movie that takes place inside of a whale? Theater owners got a bit of an answer at CinemaCon, when 20th Century showed off the first trailer for Whalefall, filmmaker Brian Duffield’s adaptation of the Daniel Klaus novel.
Austin Abrams leads the movie, which tells of a scuba diver who is swallowed alive by a sperm whale and attempts to escape all while contemplating his relationship with his late father.
In the footage, Abrams is on a diving expedition when he encounters a squid, and menacing music plays as that squid is followed by a massive whale. He’s pinned against the rocks without a way to escape, and when he does try to swim free and hide among the kelp, the whale continues to circle in the darkness.
The whale eventually goes in for the attack, with Abrams holding on for dear life to his teeth and kicking against the animal’s tongue before he is eventually swallowed whole, screaming the whole way down. Bubbles fly out of his mask and he descends into the whale’s body as the trailer cuts to black.
Josh Brolin, Elisabeth Shue and John Ortiz also star in Whalefall, which hails from Imagine Entertainment and is produced by the company’s Brian Grazer, Jeb Brody and Allan Mandelbaum. It’s based on based on the 2023 novel of the same name by Kraus, who co-wrote the script with director Duffield. Whalefall swims into theaters on Oct. 16.
After a role on Euphoria, Abrams broke out with Zach Cregger’s Weapons, and was front and center earlier in the week at CinemaCon, when Sony unveiled the trailer for Cregger’s Resident Evil movie, which stars Abrams.
