Thomas Gibson Nickerson was an American sailor and author. In 1819, when he was fourteen years old, Nickerson served as cabin boy on the whaleship Essex. On this voyage, the ship was sunk by a whale, and the crew spent three months at sea before the survivors were rescued. In 1876 he wrote The Loss of the Ship "Essex", an account of the ordeal and of his subsequent experiences at sea. The manuscript was lost until 1960, and was first published in 1984.
Essex was an American whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts, which was launched in 1799. On November 20, 1820, while at sea in the southern Pacific Ocean under the command of Captain George Pollard Jr., the ship was attacked and sunk by a sperm whale. About 2,000 nautical miles (3,700 km) from the coast of South America, the 20-man crew was forced to make for land in three whaleboats with what food and water they could salvage from the wreck.
Christopher Hemsworth is an Australian actor. He rose to prominence playing Kim Hyde in the Australian television series Home and Away (2004–2007) before beginning a film career in Hollywood. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), Hemsworth starred as Thor in the 2011 film of the same name and reprised the role in several subsequent installments, which established him among the world's highest-paid actors.
The Ann Alexander was a three-masted ship from New Bedford, Massachusetts. She is notable for having been rammed and sunk by a wounded sperm whale in the South Pacific on August 20, 1851, some 30 years after the famous incident in which the Essex was stove in and sunk by a whale in the same area.
Owen Chase was first mate of the whaler Essex, which sank in the Pacific Ocean on November 20, 1820, after being rammed by a sperm whale. Soon after his return to Nantucket, Chase wrote an account of the shipwreck and the attempts of the crew to reach land in small boats. The book, Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex, was published in 1821 and would inspire Herman Melville to write Moby-Dick.
Nathaniel Philbrick is an American author of history, winner of the National Book Award, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His maritime history, In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, is based on what inspired Herman Melville to author Moby-Dick, won the 2000 National Book Award for Nonfiction and was adapted as a film in 2015.
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex is a book by American writer Nathaniel Philbrick about the loss of the whaler Essex in the Pacific Ocean in 1820. The book was published by Viking Press on May 8, 2000, and won the 2000 National Book Award for Nonfiction. It was adapted into a film of the same name, which was released in December 2015.
Liam Hemsworth is an Australian actor. He played the roles of Josh Taylor in the soap opera Neighbours and Marcus in the children's television series The Elephant Princess. In American films, Hemsworth starred as Will Blakelee in The Last Song (2010), as Gale Hawthorne in The Hunger Games film series (2012–2015), and as Jake Morrison in Independence Day: Resurgence (2016).
Owen Coffin was a sailor aboard the Nantucket whaler Essex when it set sail for the Pacific Ocean on a sperm whale-hunting expedition in August 1819, under the command of his cousin, George Pollard, Jr. In November 1820, a whale rammed and breached the hull of Essex in mid-Pacific, causing Essex to sink. The crew escaped in small whaleboats, with sufficient supplies for two months, but were not rescued within that time. During January 1821, the near-starved survivors began to eat the bodies of those who had died. When even this resource ran out, the four men remaining in Pollard's boat agreed to draw straws to decide which of them should be killed, lest all four die of starvation. Coffin lost in the lottery, and was shot and eaten. The captain volunteered to take Coffin's place but Coffin refused, saying it was his "right" to do so that the others might live.
Two Brothers was a Nantucket whaleship that sank on the night of February 11, 1823, off the French Frigate Shoals. The ship's captain was George Pollard, Jr., former captain of the famous whaleship Essex. The wreck was discovered in 2008 by a team of marine archaeologists working on an expedition for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. She is thought to have been built in 1804 by Joseph Glidden in Hallowell, Maine.
Into the Deep: America, Whaling & the World is a two-hour documentary by Ric Burns about the history of the whaling industry in the United States. The film was initially released on May 10, 2010.
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is a 2013 American dystopian action film directed by Francis Lawrence from a screenplay by Simon Beaufoy and Michael deBruyn, based on the 2009 novel Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. The sequel to The Hunger Games (2012), it is the second installment in The Hunger Games film series. The film stars Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jeffrey Wright, Stanley Tucci, and Donald Sutherland. In the film, Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Hutcherson) become targets of the Capitol after their victory in the Games inspire uprisings in Panem.
Horrible Bosses 2 is a 2014 American crime comedy film directed by Sean Anders and written by Anders and John Morris. A sequel to 2011's Horrible Bosses, the film stars Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, Jamie Foxx, Chris Pine, and Christoph Waltz.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 is a 2014 American dystopian action film. The sequel to The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013), it is the third installment in The Hunger Games film series. The film is based on the first part of Mockingjay, the third novel in the underlying book trilogy by Suzanne Collins. The film is directed by Francis Lawrence based on a screenplay by Peter Craig and Danny Strong. It stars Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jeffrey Wright, Stanley Tucci, Donald Sutherland and Sam Claflin. In the film, Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence) joins Alma Coin (Moore), the renegade leader of the underground District 13, in a mass rebellion against the Capitol.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 is a 2015 American dystopian action film directed by Francis Lawrence from a screenplay by Peter Craig and Danny Strong, based on the 2010 novel Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins. The sequel to The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 (2014), it is the fourth installment in The Hunger Games film series and the final installment in the original film series. It stars Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Julianne Moore, Jeffrey Wright, Stanley Tucci, Donald Sutherland, and in his final film role, Philip Seymour Hoffman. In the film, Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence) leads a team of rebels to Panem to liberate it from the tyrannical leadership of Coriolanus Snow (Sutherland). This marks Hoffman’s final film appearance prior to his death.
The Hunger Games is a media franchise centering on a series of science fiction dystopian adventure films, based on the novel series of the same name by Suzanne Collins. The films are distributed by Lionsgate. The series feature an ensemble cast including Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen, Josh Hutcherson as Peeta Mellark, Liam Hemsworth as Gale Hawthorne, Woody Harrelson as Haymitch Abernathy, Elizabeth Banks as Effie Trinket, Stanley Tucci as Caesar Flickerman, and Donald Sutherland as President Snow. In the prequel film, Tom Blyth stars as Coriolanus Snow, Rachel Zegler as Lucy Gray Baird, Josh Andrés Rivera as Sejanus Plinth, Hunter Schafer as Tigris Snow, Peter Dinklage as Casca Highbottom, Viola Davis as Dr. Volumnia Gaul and Jason Schwartzman as Lucretius "Lucky" Flickerman.
The Whale is a British television film that was first broadcast on BBC One on 22 December 2013. Terry Cafolla wrote the film about the Essex incident in 1820, which also formed the basis of Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick. The Whale was also broadcast on Animal Planet in the United States during the summer of 2014.
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is a 2014 epic high fantasy adventure film directed by Peter Jackson from a screenplay by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Jackson, and Guillermo del Toro. It is based on the 1937 novel The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. It is the sequel to 2013's The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug as well as the final instalment in The Hobbit trilogy, acting as a prequel to Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Vacation is a 2015 American road comedy film written and directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. It stars Ed Helms, Christina Applegate, Leslie Mann, Beverly D'Angelo, Chris Hemsworth, and Chevy Chase. It is the fifth and final theatrical installment of the Vacation film series, serving as a standalone sequel to Vegas Vacation (1997). It is also the second not to carry the National Lampoon name after Vegas Vacation.
George Pollard Jr. was the captain of the whalers Essex and Two Brothers, both of which sank. Following both events, he became a night watchman in his town of Nantucket, Massachusetts. Pollard's life, including his encounter with the sperm whale that sank Essex, likely served as inspiration for Captain Ahab, the whale-obsessed character in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick. Pollard also appears as a character in Melville's Clarel. Various books and films have been created that explain the experiences of Pollard and his crews.
