Netflix’s True Survival Story Comes Alive With Amazing Stars

By Jonathan Klotz
| Published 24 seconds ago

There’s no rhyme or reason to what’s becoming a streaming hit, a recent box office bomb Horizon: An American Saga a Furiosa: The Mad Max Saga become hits on Netflix makes some sense, but surprisingly, the historical adventure In the Heart of the Sea2015 box office flop, joined them. The film, directed by Ron Howard, only made $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 that 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, Essexattacked by a great white whale and forced the crew to shelter on three smaller whaling boats. Displaced in the open ocean, the crew struggles to survive, battling the weather, the ocean, and each other. With Ron Howard behind the camera, the story is beautiful and harrowing, but it’s all the more dramatic because it’s based on a true story.

The Essex was a real whaling ship which sank in 1820 with only a handful of survivors, but two of them, the first mate, Chase Owens, and the cabin boy, Thomas Nickerson, wrote about the incident when they returned home to Nantucket. In the Heart of the Sea is a dramatic retelling of their stories that adapts the non-fiction book of the same name by historian Nathaniel Philbrick. In case you are curious, the whale who took down the ship, described as a “great white whale,” helped inspire Herman Melville when he wrote Moby Dickwhich you probably never knew was based, in part, on a true story.

Saved From Oblivion By Superstar Cast

It was not fans of classic literature who drove In the Heart of the Sea towards the top of Netflix’s streaming chart, but instead, it was the rising star power of the three leads. Over the past decade since the film’s original release, Chris Hemsworth has become well known as Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Tom Holland is Spider-Man, and Cillian Murphy went on to fame thanks to Peaky Blinders a Oppenheimer. In 2015, while Hemsworth had already played Thor in Avengersit wasn’t a draw, and Holland got the role of Peter Parker in part because of his performance as Nickerson, the cabin boy.

The stars of the future did not take In the Heart of the Sea easy either, partly due to the extreme physical demands of playing men stranded on the open ocean and partly Ron Howard’s decision to bring them the storm. Rather than relying entirely on CGI, Howard blasted the cast with cold water cannons on the deck of the ship to bring across the true feeling of being battered by the fury of the ocean. Hemsworth referred to the film as the most difficult and challenging performance of his career, but it was rewarded, with critics praising his performance after its release.

Although critics enjoyed the film, it suffered from a poor release date, where it was clearly intended as counter-programming by Warner Bros., the studio that can’t seem to do anything right. ok In Heart of the Seaan old-fashioned historical drama, which premiered on December 11, 2015, a week earlier Star Wars: The Force Awakens, one of the most successful films in human history. Turns out, the film was simply ahead of its time, and the star-making cast has sparked interest in their past work, and a high seas survival adventure is a better choice than watching Black Hat.

In the Heart of the Sea streaming now on Netflix.