Warner Bros. has set "Open Water" director Chris Kentis and producer Laura Lau to handle a movie about the famous events surrounding the survivors of the U.S.S. Indianapolis in World War Two.
Based on Douglas Stanton book "In Harm's Way", the film "Indianapolis" follows the survivors of the ship which was sunk by the Japanese after delivering materials used in the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Floating for five days in the Philippine Sea, the 900 survivors were reduced to 317 by the time of rescue from the shark-infested waters. Variety reports that Kentis will direct and co-write the project with Lau.
The incident was famously spoken of in a monologue by actor Robert Shaw in a scene from 1975's "Jaws" and has previously been adapted into a 1991 TV movie starring "Prison Break" warden actor Stacy Keach.
Warner Bros. previously tried to get a film verion going five years ago with Mel Gibson starring and Barry Levinson directing. Universal has a rival project in development which J.J. Abrams was eyeing to direct.
Kentis says "Indianapolis" will flesh out with backstory on why the ship's distress signal went unheeded, how the survivors were spotted accidentally and how the military made a scapegoat of Captain Charles Butler McVay III who committed suicide in 1968.
