The next Ron Howard epic

Director Ron Howard, fresh from his much underappreciated Rush, will be releasing his next film, In the Heart of the Sea, in March based on the true story of the Essex.

If you’re like me, you don’t know that much about the Essex, but it seems it was a whaling vessel that, during an expedition in the winter of 1820, had a disastrous encounter with a mammoth killer whale. The story of the Essex would become the basis of Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick. (In the film Ben Whislaw plays Melville, whose investigation of the Essex made public what had happened to it.)

Howard employed many of the same behind-the-scenes people he used on Rush as well as that movie’s lead Chris Hemsworth.

Here’s a sneak peak that looks terribly promising to me (but then sneak peaks are designed to make films look promising):