Whalefall Gets an Added Ending After Test Screenings

The film Whalefall first ended with its hero being pulled from the sea, but 20th Century Studios pushed for a new closing scene after test screenings, director Brian Duffield told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview published on 20 October 2026.

In the original version, Jay Gardiner survives an explosion inside a sperm whale and is rescued by a nearby cabin cruiser. The studio then asked for an epilogue that would give audiences a sense of family closure. Duffield said the studio pressed hard for the scene. He and the film's star, Austin Abrams, were unsure about it. They had preferred to end with Jay being fished out of the water and then finish the film there.

The added scene brings the Gardiner family together at sea, along with family friend Hewey, played by John Ortiz. It also shows what Jay has been through. He has neck scarring and has lost his left arm. Spoiler warning for anyone who has not seen the film: the epilogue is the part of the story that changed.

For readers new to the story, Whalefall is adapted from a novel by Daniel Kraus, who co-wrote the screenplay with Duffield. Abrams plays Jay, an Iowa college student who returns to the Central Coast after his estranged father dies by suicide at sea. Josh Brolin plays Mitt, Jay's terminally ill father. In the main plot, Jay is swallowed by a whale while it hunts a squid. He has to escape its stomach before his diving tank runs out. The blast that frees him kills the whale and starts a "whalefall," the name for a dead whale sinking to the ocean floor, where it feeds deep-sea life.

The film has drawn plenty of coverage. The Hollywood Reporter ran a feature with Duffield on test-screening challenges, and its review of Whalefall, published 15 October, said the film strains hard. TheWrap also interviewed Duffield about bringing the film to the big screen, with references to JFK and Cloud Atlas. Promotional posts from 20th Century Studios on X said the film would be in theatres only, with October 16 given as the date.

What makes this change worth watching is how it happened. The ending was not decided by the filmmakers alone. A studio reacted to test audiences and asked for a different final scene, and the filmmakers went along with it. Duffield's account is the clearest record so far of how that decision was made.