Ed Zwick never met a period of history he didn't like, whether it be Glory's Civil War or the period of World War II most recently depicted in Defiance. So it should come as a surprise to none of us that for his next project, Zwick is teling a true story that happened somewhere in the past.

Luckily, he's got a knack for picking some fascinating stories out of history. His next film, In the Heart of the Sea, is about a whaling ship that was stalked and eventually destroyed by a sperm whale; out of the surviving crew that spent 90 days lost at sea, only eight made it back to shore. Variety notes that Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz are writing the script based on the book by Nathaniel Philbrick. And yes, this real life story was the inspiration for Herman Melville's Moby Dick.

There's a nice consistency to Zwick's work, in which you can count on the same portentous music, life-or-death moments and grindingly obvious themes. So we pretty much already know what to expect from In the Heart of the Sea, but that won't make it any less enjoyable when it comes out. After all, who isn't in the mood to see a whale attack a giant ship?