Chris Pine Coast Guard thriller ‘The Finest Hours’ shoving off

Call it “Captain Phillips” meets Capt. Kirk.

Production is set to begin this month on “The Finest Hours,” a thriller at sea starring “Star Trek” leading man Chris Pine along with Casey Affleck and Holliday Grainger, Disney announced Tuesday.

Directed by Craig Gillespie (“Million Dollar Arm,” “Lars and the Real Girl”), “The Finest Hours” is inspired by a real-life disaster that occurred in February 1952, when one of the worst storms ever to bear down the East Coast struck New England and ripped an oil taker in half off the coast of Cape Cod. Four members of the Coast Guard responded on a small lifeboat, battling frigid temperatures and 70-foot waves, and rescued the more than 30 sailors stranded aboard the sinking vessel.

Gillespie is directing from a screenplay by Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson and Scott Silver, who adapted Casey Sherman and Michael J. Tougias’ book. Jim Whitaker and Dorothy Aufiero are the producers.

With “The Finest Hours,” Gillespie will be looking to rebound from the disappointing box office performance of his most recent film, the Jon Hamm-starring baseball story “Million Dollar Arm.” Pine, meanwhile, has shown himself to be a capable ensemble leader in two “Star Trek” movies but stumbled while trying to carry “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit.”

“The Finest Hours” will shoot on location in Quincy and Chatham, Mass. The film is scheduled to hit theaters in the fall of 2015.

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