Chris Kentis directed last year’s shark story Open Water for Lionsgate and is now ready to return to the waters along with his producer partner Laura Lau as the two will tackle a film adaptation of the Douglas Stanton book “In Harm’s Way” for Warner Bros.
The film will be titled Indianapolis and Kentis and Lau will pen the pic with Kentis directing. The story concerns WWII’s U.S.S. Indianapolis, sunk by a Japanese sub following a secret mission to deliver materials for the atomic bomb that would be dropped on Hiroshima. The men floated for five days in the Philippine Sea; only 317 of an estimated 900 who abandoned ship were pulled from the shark-infested waters.
You may remember the story as it was told in the 1975 shark story a few people saw, a little film called Jaws.
The Variety article goes on to say that Warner Bros. has tried several versions — Mel Gibson almost starred five years ago for director Barry Levinson — and Universal has a rival project that J.J. Abrams is eyeing based on the story of a youth whose school research project helped force a posthumous reconsideration of the ship’s court-martialed captain, Charles McVay.
Apparently Kentis actually planned on using Open Water as a stepping stone to Indianapolis, one reason he made the film was so as to show he could handle this project. He told Variety, “Being a diver and a WWII buff, this is a story that long haunted me.”
Open Water cost $120,000 and grossed $58.7 million worldwide.
