The Whalefall Trailer Reveals How The Unadaptable Book Becomes A Movie

With all due respect to Ryan Gosling’s Ryland Grace and his best buddy Rocky, “Project Hail Mary” was never going to be the most ambitious literary adaptation of the year. No, that title instead goes to the aptly-named “Whalefall,” the big screen take on the 2023 book by author Daniel Kraus, a novel that’s certain to go down as one of your most memorable reading experiences ever. Even “Dune: Part 3” may struggle to match up to the images and downright unadaptable ideas at play here, as any reader worth their salt can probably confirm. Indeed, up to this point, we’ve been at a loss as to how anyone could actually pull a cinematic treatment of “Whalefall” off.

Well, wonder no more. Writer/director Brian Duffield (“Spontaneous,” “No One Will Save You”) is the man in charge of visualizing this story about a deep-sea diver who ends up swallowed whole by a whale (one of two upcoming movies with this exact premise, in fact) and only has an hour to escape. The novel — which isn’t quite as far-fetched as you might be thinking — quickly made a name for itself for its heady concept, highly-emotional undercurrent, and some seriously trippy visuals as it follows its protagonist Jay Gardiner (played by Austin Abrams in Duffield’s movie) in a literal fight with nature to survive his Jonah-like ordeal.

This film has remained a fixture as one of our most anticipated 2026 movies that most people haven’t even heard of yet, but that’s finally about to change. 20th Century Studios has released a new trailer for “Whalefall,” and, well, it practically sells itself. Check out the footage above.