Sumith Prasad
Based on a true story, James Gray’s survival thriller ‘Mayday 109’ revolves around a young John F. Kennedy, who struggles to save the crew of his PT Boat after a Japanese warship sinks it during World War II. Kennedy serves as the commander of the patrol torpedo boat PT 109 in the South Pacific when it gets targeted by a destroyer named Amagiri. After the deaths of two of his crewmen, Kennedy guides the eleven survivors in swimming to a deserted island, where the crew has to hide from passing Japanese barges.
As the narrative progresses, Kennedy swims over two miles to two other islands in search of help and food. He finally leads his men to Olasana Island, an uninhabited island in the New Georgia Islands of the Western Province of the Solomon Islands, a region that has coconut trees and drinkable water. After engaging with friendly locals and scrawling an SOS on a coconut, Kennedy and his colleagues get located by a group of rescuers.
Gray is helming the movie based on a screenplay by Samuel V. Franco and Evan Kilgore. The filmmaker’s latest film is the 2022 drama ‘Armageddon Time,’ starring Anne Hathaway, Jeremy Strong, and Anthony Hopkins. In addition to the survival thriller, he is engaged in the pre-production of ‘I Am Pilgrim,’ a spy drama written by Terry Hayes based on his espionage novel trilogy. Gray will also write and direct ‘Mailer,’ a biographical series based on the life of celebrated author Norman Mailer. The filmmaker’s recent credits include Leonardo DiCaprio-starrer short ‘Welcome Back Future,’ Brad Pitt-starrer ‘Ad Astra,’ and the adventure drama ‘The Lost City of Z.’
Franco is known for serving as an associate producer of ‘Howard Stern on Demand.’ Kilgore, on the other hand, previously co-wrote ‘Butterflies of Bill Baker,’ a thriller starring Will Chase and Marin Hinkle.
It is rumored that Bill Skarsgård is set to portray Kennedy in the movie. The actor recently completed the filming of ‘The Crow,’ in which he plays Eric Draven. He also portrays Count Orlok in Robert Eggers’ horror film ‘Nosferatu,’ alongside Emma Corrin, Willem Dafoe, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Nicholas Hoult. Skarsgård played Marquis in the action film ‘John Wick: Chapter 4,’ Boy in ‘Boy Kills World,’ Kaffepaket/Avgrundsrösten in ‘One Day All This Will Be Yours,’ and Keith in the horror thriller ‘Barbarian.’
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