“We were advised to wrap and evacuate”: the Ron Howard movie caught up in a fatal storm
Digital effects and greenscreens have made it easier than ever to mount an adventurous epic in terms of nothing but the logistics. However, as Ron Howard discovered first-hand, doing it the old-fashioned way and shooting on location leaves the cast and crew at the mercy of the elements.
Instead of simply making a new big-screen version of Morgan Freeman’s favourite-ever book, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker decided to go one step beyond by adapting the material that had partially inspired it to begin with.
Nathaniel Philbrick’s book In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex recounts the journey of the titular vessel, which was attacked and ultimately sunk by a sperm whale. This forced the remaining crew to head off in search of land with rapidly dwindling resources at the mercy of the unforgiving ocean.
Herman Melville’s classic Moby Dick used the fate of the Essex as a key jumping-off point, whereas Howard opted to focus on the real-life scenario. Enlisting a star-studded cast that included Chris Hemsworth, Tom Holland, Cillian Murphy, Ben Whishaw, and Brendan Gleeson to do so, the location shoot descended upon the island of La Gomera in the Canary Islands.
However, the weather wasn’t in the mood for playing ball, leaving Howard and those involved with In the Heart of the Sea staring potential danger straight in the face. In December 2013, the director took to social media to reveal that once a storm had started brewing, “We were forced to wrap and evacuate. Pronto. ASAP.”
By all accounts, being forced to shut up shop early and spending one and a half days away from the set until the conditions improved was hardly disastrous for the movie, but the storm itself was deadly. According to local reports, flash floods and mudslides just 20 miles away from where In the Heart of the Sea was filming claimed five lives, with power outages affecting hundreds more.
Howard’s long-time producer and business partner Brian Grazer admitted “there was a near-typhoon, which is very rare for that area,” but they got off easy by comparison. The remainder of In the Heart of the Sea‘s shoot managed to go off without a hitch. Still, it must have been a scary experience for the crew to pack up and get out of dodge as quickly as possible to avoid being caught in the thick of it, especially when there were fatalities within such close proximity.
The stormiest scenes in the film may have been created within the safety of a soundstage, but Howard came very close to getting much too close for comfort, with the evacuation order being issued almost as soon as the weather began to take a turn for the worst. Nobody working on In the Heart of the Sea was hurt, but the same can’t be said for everyone caught in the deluge.
