Disney’s 20th Century Studios turns ‘Whalefall’ into a claustrophobic, big-screen survival story

A year after losing his father, college student Jay Gardiner returns to Monterey, California, trying to recover his remains and find closure. In 20th Century Studios’ Whalefall, that effort leads to the film’s central ordeal: a sperm whale hunting a giant squid swallows Jay whole, trapping him deep inside the whale’s digestive tract. With roughly an hour of air left, the story pivots on what Jay learned growing up, as the lessons from his local diver father figure become his route to survival.

The film is based on the novel Whalefall by Pulitzer Prize winner Daniel Kraus, who also co-wrote the screenplay alongside director, producer, and co-writer Brian Duffield. The project began with Kraus’s research-driven question after watching a viral video of kayakers appearing to nearly end up inside a whale’s mouth. Kraus said he spent weeks investigating with scientists, and once they confirmed it was possible, however unlikely, he began writing. After the book’s publication in 2023, Imagine Entertainment acquired the rights, and Duffield and Kraus later drafted the script.

Duffield’s comments in the Disney production feature center on a core adaptation challenge: much of the book unfolds inside Jay’s head. The team’s approach, he said, was to make the internal material more external without losing the emotional experience of reading the novel. Kraus echoed that the adaptation needed to retain what makes the story special while translating it into a more conventional, film-driven form.

Working with the author was presented as a safeguard for that translation. Duffield described the process as involving the “genius” of Kraus, including attention to whether the author was satisfied with how his work was handled. Kraus, for his part, framed Whalefall as an outlier in his writing career, emphasizing optimism and “heart” rather than cynicism, and tying that emotional goal to why the film resonates beyond its extreme premise.

On the casting side, the production said the filmmakers auditioned hundreds of men ages 18 to 27 before selecting Austin Abrams to play Jay. Josh Brolin was cast as Mitt, a harsh but controlling patriarch who is also a revered local diver with a love of the ocean. The behind-the-scenes material describes Mitt as a figure who shaped Jay’s toughness, and Brolin said the emotional core appealed to him immediately, pointing to the universal dynamics of parenting and family hardship.

The film’s realism appears to have depended on specialist consultation. Abrams trained for the role by visiting a sperm whale sanctuary off Dominica, where he scuba-dived with whale documentarian Patrick Dykstra. The production also described research into the whale’s multi-part digestive tract, including how stomach acid might affect Jay and whether his dive gear would hold up. Whale anatomist Dr. Joy Reidenberg, who had also guided Kraus during the novel’s research, advised the film team, and Wētā Workshop joined early to test which materials could make the whale’s interior feel believable on screen.

To help sell the survival suspense, the production said it built the story’s most intense sequences around constrained geography and pacing. For the sets inside the whale’s stomach, the team kept the environment compact, with the director describing Jay as staying “locked in” an egg-like space for much of the time. Duffield said the crew also looked for moments where Jay could take brief breaths, so the film would not remain on a constant emotional roller coaster and could make later escalations feel more jarring.

Filming took place on location in California, including around Catalina Island, Monterey, and San Pedro, as well as on soundstages in Studio City. The production said it aimed to match the novel’s settings where possible, with Monastery Beach in Carmel standing in for Jay’s fateful first plunge. The team reportedly shot the stomach sequences in order, which Abrams said helped him understand where he was in the story from day to day, and he argued that Whalefall is best experienced in a theater due to its visuals and engrossing sound.

What remains less clear from the feature is how Whalefall’s production decisions translate into measurable outcomes such as audience reception, release strategy, or final runtime specifics. The behind-the-scenes material concentrates on creative choices, adaptation mechanics, and technical realism rather than business targets. Viewers will likely learn more as the film’s marketing campaign and distribution plans develop, and as critical and audience responses test whether the intended big-screen immersion lands.