Bestselling novel 'Whalefall' makes jump from the page to the big screen in new thriller
Survival, estrangement, heartache, family, fear, death and the will to live.
In theaters now, the thriller "Whalefall" brings the bestselling novel of the same name to the big screen in a story that will have you gripping your seat, and your heart.
"The book had such a profound impact on me when I read it," says Josh Brolin, who plays Mitt Gardiner.
He says bringing Daniel Kraus' bestselling novel "Whalefall" to life was a task way bigger, and much deeper, than the fantastical, cinematic draw of a scuba diver who is swallowed alive by a 60-ton sperm whale, with only one hour of oxygen left to escape.
"I was so invested in the book that when it finished when I finished it, I just sobbed," says Brolin.
Austin Abrams plays Jay Gardiner, that grieving young man who dives off the coast of California to recover the remains of his deceased father, when he's swallowed by that whale.
"So much of it was just something being a part of something you've never seen before, and something that hadn't been done before," says Abrams. "It's beautiful and it's huge in scope, but also it makes you feel something."
Author Daniel Kraus says calls the experience of turning his novel into a feature film "surreal."
"You write a story hoping people will experience it," says Kraus. "It's an unexpected gift."
Brolin plays the father who hopes his words, his wisdom, outlive him.
"The parent-child relationships, the existential questions, the relationship with the sea, the Steinbeck stuff...for me, I was selfishly navigating through my own life," says Brolin.
The cast and crew say this is a story made for movie magic like this.
"It's the kind of the nightmare and the privilege of filmmaking where you do have these hallucinatory images in your mind about like what a movie could look and then all of a sudden it's on a billboard," says director and co-writer Brian Duffield.
"Whalefall" is now playing in theaters.
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