Chai Vasarhelyi, Natalie Hewit, & Jimmy Chin to Direct NatGeo Doc About the Quest to Find Endurance Shipwreck

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Chai Vasarhelyi, Natalie Hewit, & Jimmy Chin to Direct NatGeo Doc About the Quest to Find Endurance Shipwreck

Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin won an Oscar for their look inside Alex Honnold’s quest to climb the 3,000ft El Capitan in Yosemite National Park without a rope and took viewers behind the scenes of the world’s most famous cave dive in “The Rescue,” the story of how scuba divers helped rescue 12 boys and their coach from inside a flooded cave in Northern Thailand. Their next project will see them going underwater again. They’re teaming up with BAFTA-nominated director Natalie Hewit (“Bring Back the Bush: Where Did All the Pubic Hair Go?”) to explore the search to find the lost ship of Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton. Deadline broke the news. 

Shackleton’s ship, Endurance, was discovered last year “on the Weddell Sea floor near the northernmost part of the Antarctic, more than a hundred years after the vessel sank. The Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust organized and funded the mission to find the historic wreck. Shackleton and his crew of 27 set sail in late 1914 on an exploratory mission endorsed by Winston Churchill, then Britain’s First Lord of the Admiralty. The ship became trapped in sea ice, forcing the crew to quit the vessel and set up camp on an ice floe. Then, on November 27, 1915, Endurance sank,” the source details. “That disastrous development set off one of history’s most extraordinary stories of adventure and survival as the crew battled the elements to stay alive. Every one of them were rescued eventually after an ordeal of four months. In the meantime, Endurance herself came to rest 10,000 feet below the ice, only to be located last March.”

The NatGeo doc’s working title is “Endurance.”

“We have dedicated our careers to telling stories about the edge of human experience, exploration, and possibility,” Vasarhelyi and Chin said. “Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance is the definitive true story of adventure and survival against all odds. With the discovery of his long-lost ship — which sank over 100 years ago in the unforgiving Weddell Sea — by a group of fearless scientists, we are able to revisit Shackleton’s story of hardship, bravery and leadership with a fresh lens. We are thrilled to be able to work with Nat Hewit and the team and look forward to using cutting-edge technology to bring this story of friendship, grit, inspiration, and discovery to contemporary audiences of all ages.”

Hewit, who participated in the expedition that found Endurance, stated, “What happened to Shackleton and his crew on the Weddell Sea — and how they responded and persevered — is the stuff of legend. Having been part of this amazing discovery, I am so honored to have the opportunity to tell the inspiring story of Shackleton and his crew, capturing important history while showcasing the very cutting edge in deep sea exploration and filmmaking technology that helped us to make history in March 2022.”

“Endurance” will be available exclusively on National Geographic Channels and Disney+. No word on a release date yet.

Vasarhelyi and Chin’s latest film, “Wild Life,” a portrait of conservationists Kris and Doug Tompkins, premiered at SXSW earlier this month.