Despite the loss of original director J.C. Chandor, the film based on the tragedy aboard the Deepwater Horizon oil rig is still going ahead, with Peter Berg taking the reins. He’s now started cranking the cameras in New Orleans and the first image from the film – of Mark Wahlberg as chief electronics technician Mike Williams – is online.
The movie, which also features Kurt Russell, John Malkovich, Kate Hudson, Gina Rodriguez and Dylan O’Brien, charts the events on the BP oil rig in the 48 hours leading up to the 2010 disaster and the day itself. The behind-the-scenes tale will highlight stories of real-life heroism around the incident, which were not made public at the time but appeared in the script’s source material, a New York Times article entitled 'Deepwater Horizon’s Final Hour'. The paper’s piece chronicled how 11 people were killed and 16 injured when the rig blew, and gushed oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Matthew Michael Carnahan has adapted the script for the film, which is simply known as Deepwater Horizon.
Berg is aiming to have the film read for a September 30, 2016 release in the States, but there’s no word on a UK date yet.