Whalefall Traps Austin Abrams Inside a Sperm Whale With an Hour of Air

20th Century Studios opens Whalefall in theaters on October 16. The pitch is as simple as it is claustrophobic: a young diver is swallowed by a sperm whale and has about sixty minutes of oxygen to get out.

Brian Duffield directs from a script he wrote with Daniel Kraus, adapting Kraus’s own 2023 novel. Ron Howard and Brian Grazer produce through Imagine Entertainment.

The story

Austin Abrams plays Jay Gardiner, who goes diving off the California coast looking for what is left of his father, lost at sea. Then the whale finds him. Trapped in its stomach and watching his air run down, Jay has to fight his way out while the film circles back to the difficult relationship he had with his dad.

The cast

• Austin Abrams as Jay Gardiner;
• Josh Brolin as Mitt Gardiner;
• Elisabeth Shue as Zara Gardiner;
• Jane Levy as Eva Gardiner;
• Emily Rudd as Nan Gardiner;
• John Ortiz as Hewey.

The filmmakers

Duffield wrote Underwater and Love and Monsters before directing the nearly dialogue-free alien invasion film No One Will Save You. Kraus co-authored The Shape of Water novel with Guillermo del Toro.

Production kicked off in Los Angeles on June 9, 2025, with location shooting on the Monterey Peninsula. Aaron Morton is the cinematographer, Joseph Trapanese composed the score, and two-time Oscar winner Pietro Scalia, of JFK and Black Hawk Down, edited. The film runs 106 minutes.

Release

Whalefall hits theaters October 16, with reviews still to come.