‘In the Heart of the Sea’ Trailer: Chris Hemsworth Chases Moby Dick

Chris Hemsworth has fought Frost Giants, Dark Elves, Destroyers, Chitauris, rock creatures and even Hulks, but in his next movie - 'In the Heart of the Sea' - he's going to fight something even bigger than all of those things: a really, really, really big whale.

'In the Heart of the Sea' is not exactly a 'Moby Dick' movie, but it also sort of is a 'Moby Dick' movie. This is the movie about the real life events that inspired Herman Melville's classic novel about the great white whale. In fact, Herman Melville is a character in this movie, played by Ben Whishaw ('Cloud Atlas'). The movie goes a little something like this:

In the winter of 1820, the New England whaling ship Essex was assaulted by something no one could believe: a whale of mammoth size and will, and an almost human sense of vengeance. The real-life maritime disaster would inspire Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. But that told only half the story. 'In the Heart of the Sea' reveals the encounter’s harrowing aftermath, as the ship’s surviving crew is pushed to their limits and forced to do the unthinkable to stay alive. Braving storms, starvation, panic and despair, the men will call into question their deepest beliefs, from the value of their lives to the morality of their trade, as their captain searches for direction on the open sea and his first mate still seeks to bring the great whale down.

We don't want to spoil anything, but if you read that synopsis above closely, you'll notice "do the unthinkable" and "starvation" mentioned close together. And, with that, you can kinda figure out that a giant whale isn't the only scary thing in this movie.

We were on the London set last year, the exact weekend that 'Thor: The Dark World' opened in theaters. You were used to seeing Hemsworth as this big muscular mass of a man and then seeing him on set that day, he was skinner than I was. (He could still kick my ass, but I digress.) Hemsworth and the cast had to lose over 60 pounds to play starving soldiers and, well, they all certainly looked the part of starving.

It's nice to see Hemsworth branching out from the 'Avengers' universe with some very different roles, albeit ones that play to his hunky strengths.

'In the Heart of the Sea' opens in theaters and IMAX on March 13, 2015.