The trailer for Whalefall just dropped, and this might be the coolest movie of the year.
The premise is already insane: a scuba diver gets swallowed by a giant sperm whale, ends up trapped inside with limited oxygen, and appears to have to survive a battle with a giant squid while trying to find a way out. It’s basically the kind of movie pitch that makes you immediately go, “Yep, I’m in.”
What really sells it, though, is how good the trailer looks. The visuals are incredible, the scale feels massive, and that shot of Austin Abrams getting swallowed by the whale is the kind of image that instantly burns itself into your brain. It looks terrifying, spectacular, and exactly the sort of thing that deserves to be seen on the biggest screen possible.
Brian Duffield seems to be leaning right into what made his previous work so effective: isolation, tension, and putting a character in an absolutely impossible situation. Except this time the situation is being trapped inside a whale at the bottom of the ocean.
Austin Abrams is having one hell of a run right now. Between Weapon, Resident Evil, and now Whalefall, he has somehow become Hollywood’s go-to actor for “young guy experiencing the worst day of his life.” And Josh Brolin’s presence immediately makes the whole thing feel bigger and more serious. The trailer ends with him saying, “Survivors survive,” and it’s such a perfect note to leave on.
I honestly wish they’d shown ten more seconds of what actually happens inside the whale, but I get why they’re holding back. If they’re willing to start building hype this far ahead of release, they clearly believe they’ve got something special.
This is why I go to the movies. Not because it’s part of a cinematic universe. Not because it’s setting up six sequels. Because somebody looked at the idea of a diver trapped inside a whale fighting to survive and said, “Let’s make that.”
Day one. IMAX, if possible.
