Animal Planet is dipping into scripted television with a project that’s based on the real-life story that inspired the novel “Moby Dick,” reports Deadline.com.

The project, “Revenge of the Whale,” is a two-hour film that will star Martin Sheen as Old Thomas Nickerson, who served as a cabin boy on the real-life ship the Essex.

In a statement, Animal Planet said: “The action-packed narrative follows Nickerson as, against all odds, he comes through the worst that nature throws at him while growing up quickly in the process. He faces the destructive force of sea storms, the power of whales, the brutal desolation of the sun and sea after the shipwreck and, finally, the dark deeds he must do to survive."

Martin Sheen