Netflix True Survival Story Comes To Life With Marvel Stars
There’s no rhyme or reason to what becomes a streaming hit, recent box office bombs Horizon: An American Saga and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga becoming hits on Netflix makes some sense, but amazingly, the historical adventure In the Heart of the Sea, a 2015 box office flop, has joined them. The film, directed by Ron Howard, made only $25 million in theaters, but in this day and age, streaming success is becoming more important. With a cast that includes Chris Hemsworth, Tom Holland, and Cillian Murphy, it’s no wonder curious subscribers have been checking out the film.
The Inspiration For Moby Dick
In the Heart of the Sea tells the story of a whaling ship, Essex, attacked by a large white whale and forced the crew to take shelter on three smaller whaling boats. Adrift in the open ocean, the crew struggles for survival, battling the weather, the ocean, and each other. With Ron Howard behind the camera, the story is both gorgeous and harrowing, but it’s all the more dramatic because it’s based on a true story.
The Essex was a real whaling ship that was sunk in 1820 with only a handful of survivors, but two of them, the first mate, Chase Owens, and the cabin boy, Thomas Nickerson, ended up writing about the incident when they returned home to Nantucket. In the Heart of the Sea is a dramatic retelling of their accounts that adapts the non-fiction book of the same name by historian Nathaniel Philbrick. In case you’re curious, the whale that took down the ship, described as a “large white whale,” helped inspire Herman Melville when he wrote Moby Dick, which you probably never knew was based, in part, on a true story.
Saved From Obscurity By Superstar Cast
It’s not fans of classic literature that propelled In the Heart of the Sea toward the top of Netflix’s streaming chart, but instead, it was the increased star power of the three leads. Over the last decade since the film’s original release, Chris Hemsworth has become known as Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Tom Holland is Spider-Man, and Cillian Murphy went on to stardom thanks to Peaky Blinders and Oppenheimer. In 2015, while Hemsworth had already played Thor in Avengers, he wasn’t a solo draw, and Holland landed the role of Peter Parker in part due to his performance as Nickerson, the cabin boy.
The future superstars didn’t take In the Heart of the Sea easy either, in part due to the extreme physical demand of playing men stranded on the open ocean and partly Ron Howard’s decision to bring the storm to them. Instead of relying entirely on CGI, Howard blasted the cast with cold water cannons on the deck of the ship to get across the real feeling of being battered about by the rage of the ocean. Hemsworth referred to the film as the most difficult and demanding performance of his career, but he was rewarded, with critics praising his performance upon release.
While critics enjoyed the film, it suffered from a poor release date, where it was obviously intended as counter-programming by Warner Bros., the studio that can’t seem to do anything right. In The Heart of the Sea, an old-fashioned historical drama, premiered on December 11, 2015, one week before Star Wars: The Force Awakens, one of the most successful movies in human history. Turns out, the film was simply ahead of its time, and the cast becoming superstars has ignited interest in their past work, and a high-seas survival adventure is a better choice then watching Black Hat.
In the Heart of the Sea is streaming now on Netflix.
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