Netflix is planning a feature film about Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton and the rescue of his crew from The Endurance, with Phil Barantini attached to direct, according to Deadline.

Mark L. Smith wrote the script. Smith's credits include The Revenant, the 2015 survival epic that earned Oscars for Leonardo DiCaprio and director Alejandro González Iñárritu — a résumé that lines up neatly with Shackleton's story of endurance against impossible odds.

The producing team is large: Cliff Roberts, Mark L. Smith, Michael Pruss, Joey McFarland, Brian Oliver, Samantha Beddoe, Phil Barantini, and Ridley Scott. Production is hoped to begin in 2027, per Deadline.

The film will dramatise one of the most remarkable survival stories of the 20th century. Shackleton's ship, The Endurance, was crushed by ice and sank during the 1914 Trans-Antarctic Expedition. What followed was months of stranded limbo on the pack ice, an open-boat voyage across some of the planet's most violent seas, and ultimately a rescue of the entire crew — not a single fatality among them. Shackleton was born in Ireland, and the expedition has been the subject of documentaries and books for decades, though a major narrative feature has proved elusive.

The late director Wolfgang Petersen previously attempted to mount a Shackleton film, at one point considering Mel Gibson or Russell Crowe for the lead. That version never reached production.

Barantini comes to the project off the Netflix limited series Adolescence. His first feature film was Boiling Point, a single-take kitchen drama starring Stephen Graham. He is represented by CAA, Untitled, and Independent Talent Group; Smith by CAA and Syndicate Entertainment.

The Shackleton project arrives as Netflix continues to invest in large-scale, director-driven features. The streamer recently halted a Hannibal film starring Denzel Washington and directed by Antoine Fuqua, reportedly over budget issues — a reminder that even Netflix has a ceiling on what it will spend.

Shackleton's story has attracted film-makers for generations. The combination of a writer steeped in wilderness survival and a director known for tense, contained drama gives this version a distinct creative shape — though, as ever, the question of whether it reaches the screen will come down to budgets, schedules, and the long production calendar that separates a deal announced today from a film in front of cameras.