{"id":526931,"date":"2026-06-09T21:31:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T21:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/526931\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T21:31:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T21:31:19","slug":"whalefall-trailer-director-on-sperm-whale-4dx-austin-abrams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/526931\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Whalefall’ Trailer: Director on Sperm Whale, 4DX, Austin Abrams"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cWhalefall<\/a>\u201d director Brian Duffield<\/a> is well aware that, in most cases, the main character getting swallowed by an animal would be a bit of a buzzkill.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt would typically feel like the end of a movie,\u201d Duffield tells Variety, cracking a wide grin. \u201cLike, \u2018RIP Austin!’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut the team at Disney\u2019s 20th Century Studios felt \u201cbullish\u201d on using the intense first 15 minutes of the adventure thriller \u2014 about a scuba diver (Austin Abrams<\/a>) who, while looking for his father\u2019s (Josh Brolin) remains, is swallowed whole by an 80-foot, 60-ton sperm whale \u2014 to tease what\u2019s to come.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDisney felt it\u2019s such a crazy scene, and it happens so early in the movie, that they felt a little bullish on, \u2018Yeah, let\u2019s show them how our movie kicks off and let them wonder where we could go from there,’\u201d Duffield says about the film\u2019s official trailer, released on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEven though we are going to be a very claustrophobic movie, we\u2019re pretty big too!\u201d Duffield says of the film, which debuts in theaters on Oct. 16. \u201cWe have a lot of spectacle, sometimes in surprising ways, and it just felt like we\u2019ve never seen a movie that is set in a place where most of this movie is set.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tChoosing to center an entire film inside a sperm whale wasn\u2019t just for a catchy log line. The filmmakers did their homework to make the hungry whale \u2014 the largest toothed predator, with the rare (and largely theoretical) power to kill by sound \u2014 look and sound as realistic as possible. Duffield studied Daniel Kraus\u2019 2023 book, \u201cWhalefall,\u201d which the film is based on, and enlisted whale experts to nail the science.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat became an interesting thing where it\u2019s like, \u2018How do you convey that other animals in the ocean are registering that Austin is in the stomach? And what does that do to the stomach inside?\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cWe have different languages built in where the stomach reacts differently depending on what kind of animal is reading it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhalefall\u201d is a thrill ride, but Duffield argues that it\u2019s more than a straightforward monster movie. In fact, he says, \u201cthis whale is just as much a victim of Austin in this experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPart of the storytelling mission is to make audiences fall in love with this animal from the inside out. \u201cThe whale is not a bad guy. The whale doesn\u2019t understand that it\u2019s swallowed Austin. It\u2019s trying to swallow its lunch, and Austin is just a byproduct of that,\u201d Duffield says. \u201cWe wanted it to not feel like a monster movie, but to feel like Austin\u2019s inside of a living animal. There\u2019s something horrifying about that, but also something beautiful, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tAustin Abrams (as Jay Gardiner) in \u201cWhalefall.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t20th Century Studios.<\/p>\n

\n\tAll the underwater scenes were filmed in a tank built at the Radford Studio Center in Studio City, Calif.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEveryone knew it was a very challenging set piece, and did everything they could to make it as safe, primarily, as possible, but just as visceral and exciting,\u201d Duffield says. \u201cWhen I watch it, I see everyone\u2019s dedication to hard work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTo that point, while there are moments in the film with a stunt double or CGI, Abrams performed most of his own stunts.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou don\u2019t have to push Austin to do anything to make the movie better,\u201d Duffield says. \u201cAs soon as he was cast, he started learning how to dive, getting comfortable with all of that. It was never a conversation that we had. If anything, the only arguments we ever really got into were [when] he would want to go too far.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s when he and stunt coordinator Shauna Duggins would step in and pump the brakes. \u201cI\u2019d be like, \u2018You will die! We can\u2019t let you do these things!\u2019 But he was just so convicted about the same thing we were all convicted about, which is \u2014 audiences go to the movies for experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tAustin Abrams (as Jay Gardiner) in \u201cWhalefall.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJennifer Clasen\/20th Century Studios<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tJosh Brolin (as Mitt Gardiner) in \u201cWhalefall.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t20th Century Studios.<\/p>\n

\n\tDuffield compares \u201cWhalefall\u2019s\u201d claustrophobic setting to the UFO sequence in \u201cNope,\u201d but says he didn\u2019t take much inspiration from other disaster films. Most films in the genre center characters who possess some expertise that allows them to maneuver their way out of a life-or-death situation, but the fun of \u201cWhalefall\u201d is that the hero has no idea what he\u2019s in for.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAustin\u2019s just a teenage boy. He\u2019s really unequipped and has no training. So if anything, we talked, \u2018Well, these things are happening. You should just be screaming!\u2019\u201d Duffield says. \u201cThere\u2019s no pretense or \u2018the training kicks in\u2019 kind of thing. Once you realize where you are, you just lose your shit, melt down and start crying like a baby.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhalefall,\u201d which hits theaters on Oct. 16, will be shown in 4DX, which features motion-enabled chairs, sensations and smells. The film is still deep in post-production, so the exact experience is still being designed, and the filmmaker is excited to see how the immersive theatrical experience will make being inside a sperm whale even more terrifying.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m literally learning more about it in six hours,\u201d Duffield says. \u201cI\u2019m really curious to see how much more anxiety that gives the process because even just the motion of the whale swimming casually is going to add a lot of terror. You\u2019re constantly reminded that you\u2019re inside of a living god, essentially.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWatch the trailer below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWhalefall\u201d director Brian Duffield is well aware that, in most cases, the main character getting swallowed by an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":526932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[263],"tags":[194622,227241,18,117,19,17,327,194623],"class_list":["post-526931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-austin-abrams","tag-brian-duffield","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-movies","tag-whalefall"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116722289577934232","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/526932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}