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.