Propel: Batgirl star Leslie Grace gets swallowed by a whale in survival thriller (2025)

We’ll probably never get to see the performance Leslie Grace gave in the Batgirl movie that was scrapped by Warner Bros. as a tax write-off – but Grace’s acting career is moving forward, and Variety reports that she has just signed on to star in a survival thriller called Propel, in which her character will get swallowed by a whale.

Described as “Gravity meets 127 Hours underwater,” Propel is about a diver’s fight for survival after a boating accident leaves her for dead. Grace will be playing Kate Acosta, a commercial diver who is swallowed by a giant sperm whale during a routine commercial dive. Trapped in a living prison and gasping for air, Kate must confront both real-life monsters of the deep and her inner demons as a desperate fight for survival and salvation unfolds.

Felipe Vargas (Rosario) will be directing the film from a screenplay that was written by Jeremy Marwick and said to be inspired by real events. Javier Chapa and Phillip Braun are producing for Mucho Mas Media, with Derrick Eppich doing the same for Empirical Evidence. Filming is expected to take place later this year.

Altitude is handling international distribution sales and will be introducing the project to potential buyers at the Cannes market. They describe Propel as a “pulse-pounding elemental thriller that will leave you breathless” and “a white-knuckle thriller that explores family, resilience and rebirth.“

Propel isn’t the only whale thriller we’ve heard about recently, as Renny Harlin is set to direct a film called Black Tides, inspired by the orca attacks that have occurred off the Atlantic coast of Spain and Portugal in recent years, and Brian Duffield will be directing Whalefall, based on the Daniel Kraus novel, which is also about a diver being swallowed by a whale.

In addition to the ill-fated Batgirl movie, Leslie Grace’s acting credits include In the Heights, In the Summers, and The Thicket.

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