Renny Harlin (Deep Blue Sea, Die Hard 2) is diving back into the water to direct orca survival thriller Black Tides, and Deadline reports today that its found its star in John Travolta.
Black Tides is set to go into production late summer, and will be “shot old-school, with in-camera effects and real water work.”
John Travolta will play Bill Pierce, “an estranged father whose attempt to reconnect with his daughter and grandson turns into a harrowing battle for survival when their boat is attacked by rogue orcas off the southern coast of Spain.”
The survival thriller is inspired by real-life orca attacks that have occurred off the coast of southern Spain and Portugal, written by Chris Sparling (Buried) and Ángel Agudo (Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End). Adrián Guerra and Nuria Valls’s Nostromo Pictures (Buried) produces.
“John Travolta brings the perfect combination of grit, depth, vulnerability and charisma to the character of Bill Pierce, the estranged father, that achingly captures the tragedies of family dynamics,” said Harlin. “I can’t wait to show fans of big screen cinema how his movie star presence and physicality will add gravity to the epic action sequences and deeply emotional personal drama. As a director, I consider myself fortunate to join a list of acclaimed filmmakers who’ve had the privilege of getting to know John as an artist and a person.”
“You build a film like this around very few people. John’s one of them. He brings the history, the craft, and the instinct that lets a character land in a way that lasts,“ added producer Adrián Guerra.
Harlin is keeping busy. Not only is The Strangers: Chapter 2 scheduled to arrive this September, but the filmmaker was recently attached to the shark thriller Deep Water.
Stay tuned for more on this orca thriller as news arrives.