20th Century Studios has released the first trailer for Whalefall, the adaptation of Daniel Kraus’ novel coming to theaters in October.
The film — which stars Austin Abrams, Josh Brolin, Elisabeth Shue, John Ortiz and more — is described as The Martian meets 127 Hours, centering on a scuba diver in search of his deceased father’s remains. The diver gets swallowed by an 80-foot, 60-ton sperm whale and has only one hour to escape before his oxygen runs out. After giving up on life, the young man is surprised to find a reason to live in the most dangerous and unlikely of places.
Brian Duffield, who wrote No One Will Save You (2023) and Spontaneous (2020) in addition to serving as producer on Cocaine Bear (2023), co-wrote the screenplay with author Kraus — whose book Angel Down won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. We first told you that Imagine also has plans to adapt Angel Down into a film.
Deadline dove deeper into the making of the film on a set visit during production in September 2025 at Radford Studios, speaking to Duffield, Kraus and more about the intricate process of shooting the majority of a movie inside a whale’s stomach.
Duffield found out about the book through Twitter when Kraus signed his publishing deal and teased the novel’s premise, and the director “slid into [Kraus’] DMs” to say he wanted the rights.
“I’d never talked to him before, and then he was like, ‘It’s not done.’ And I was like, ‘Well, as soon as it’s done, send it to me.’ And then for some reason, he did, and that was before [No One Will Save You] had even come out, so I only had a very small indie movie to my name at the at the moment,” the writer director recalled during the set visit. “I read the book. Didn’t know anything about the father son stuff in it. I remember reading it as soon as he sent me, I was like, ‘I got to read this tonight to make him know that I’m serious,’ and also to see if it was good and it was f–king amazing.”
Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment eventually came aboard in August 2023 during the dual labor strikes in Hollywood. Duffield’s son was one or two at the time, which gave him more access to the father and son themes throughout the story.
“I remember reading it with my son sleeping beside me and being like,’ Oh my God.’ I was really excited about the the whale stuff, and then the all the Father Son stuff really was very powerful and painful and all the right ways,” the director told Deadline. “When I got on the phone with [Daniel], we talked about dads and being a dad and all that kind of stuff. The miracle of the book and hopefully of the movie is, when it ends, you primarily are talking about the relationships, and then the whale is third or fourth build, which for a movie that’s almost entirely inside of a whale it feels impossible, but somehow he pulls it off. He’s just a phenomenal storyteller.”
Whalefall swims into theaters in October.
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