According to Variety, New Regency has hired Edward Zwick (Defiance, The Last Samurai) to direct the film In the Heart of the Sea.
Based on true facts that were the inspiration for Herman Melville in Moby Dick, the film follows the story of the whaling ship Essex, of Nantucket, which was sunk by a sperm whale in the Pacific Ocean in 1820. For 90 days, survivors from the boat were stranded at sea in rafts. Eight people were eventually saved.
Along with his partner from Bedford Falls, Marshall Herkovitz, Zwick will co-write the screenplay based on the Nathaniel Philbrick novel, In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex.
Production on the new project is expected to begin before the end of this year.