Forget Deep Impact And Armageddon — Here Come Two Movies About People Swallowed By Whales

Were you worried that there was only one upcoming movie where someone gets eaten by a whale? Fret not. There are two, actually.

Leslie Grace — an actor and singer known for "In the Heights" and the "Batgirl" movie that Warner Bros. deleted from existence — is set to star in director Felipe Vargas' next movie "Propel" (per Variety), which is described as "'Gravity' meets '127 Hours' underwater." Grace will star as diver Kate Acosta, who ends up swallowed by an enormous sperm whale while performing a commercial dive ... and who has to figure out how to escape with her life.

The particularly funny thing about this news is that "Whalefall," a novel by Daniel Kraus, is also being adapted into a major motion picture. In March 2025, Deadline reported that Josh Brolin was in talks to join the project's cast alongside star Austin Abrams, with Brian Duffield ("No One Will Save You") serving as the film's director. As I've already made clear, "Whalefall" follows a similar trajectory as "Propel." This time, a scuba diver — played by Abrams — is searching for the remains of his father, who recently passed away, when he's swallowed by — you guessed it — a sperm whale. With only one hour to figure out how to escape, the diver is stuck in a dire life-and-death situation.

If you're at all familiar with, you know, movies, you probably know that two films coming out during the same timeframe with the same premise isn't a brand-new situation. This has actually been happening for decades, so the good news for "Propel" and "Whalefall" is that they're in pretty good company.

The phenomenon of "dueling films," or "twin films," definitely isn't new; in fact, the first known instance of this happening was in 1920 when two versions of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" hit theaters. Since then, it's happened a decent amount of times, like in 1986, when "Top Gun" and "Iron Eagle" — two movies about fighter pilots — came out, and that same year, both "Platoon" and "Full Metal Jacket" told relatively similar stories about serving in Vietnam. "Tombstone" and "Wyatt Earp," which both happen to be about Earp, came out in 1993 and 1994, while "Showgirls" and "Striptease" released in 1995 and 1996. (I don't think I need to explain the similarity there, right?)

Other famous examples include "Dante's Peak" and "Volcano" in 1997, "Antz" and "A Bug's Life" in 1998, and "Deep Impact" and "Armageddon" that same year. Even though this feels conspicuous — and like something studios might have wanted to avoid — it just keeps happening, like when "Chasing Liberty" and "First Daughter" both explored the experiences of a fictional First Daughter of the United States in 2004 and 2006's "The Prestige" and "The Illusionist" both presented a gritty look at the world of practical magic (in the 19th century, specifically). As of this writing, the most recent "twin films" we can point two are probably the biopics "Piece by Piece" and "Better Man," which both came out in 2024; both tell stories of real-life musicians in unexpected ways, whether Pharrell's life story is being told via LEGO animations or Robbie Williams becomes an ape in a biopic that is, otherwise, completely straightforward.

Anyway, neither "Propel" or "Whalefall" has a release date just yet, but maybe whale lovers will be gifted a perfect double feature whenever the twin films do hit theaters.