John Krasinski and Drew Barrymore to star in WHALES for Director Ken Kwapis

John Krasinski and Drew Barrymore are set to star in director Ken Kwapis’ (License to Wed) Whales.  Universal Pictures hopes to shoot this fall – depending on Krasinski’s Office schedule.  The movie is based on a real event from 1988 when a trio of California gray whales got trapped under the ice in the Arctic Circle.  Deadline says:

Krasinski will play a small town newspaper reporter who breaks the story. Barrymore plays a Greenpeace activist, and they turn the potential tragedy into an international story. The incident created a temporary Cold War thaw as President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev found a common cause. They interceded to save the whales.

Since certain countries hunt whales and the magnificent creatures are still threatened (how quickly everyone forgot what Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home taught us), I’m on board with any movie that might help save some of them in the future.  Even if Ken Kwapis is directing it.