YARMOUTH – Whydah Productions has acquired the motion picture film rights to underwater explorer Barry Clifford’s story of how he and John F. Kennedy Jr. discovered and salvaged the Whydah Galley.
The ship sank during a storm off the coast of Cape Cod in 1717 with $400 million in gold and silver on board.
Whydah Productions founder and Barnstable native Casey Sherman is the author of “The Finest Hours”, which is now a major film from Disney.
His latest book “Boston Strong” has served as an inspiration for the upcoming movie “Patriots Day”.
Sherman will produce the film under the Whydah Productions banner.
“The pirate film is going to be a family film adventure on the high seas, but also it’s about somebody that heard the story of a legend of a pirate ship when he was a young child, and then spent his lifetime making that a reality,” said Sherman.
Clifford and JFK Jr. spend years looking for the Whydah and finally discovered the ship’s engraved bell in 1985.
“It’s the only movie where you’re going to have John F. Kennedy Jr. and Black Beard as living characters in the same film, that’ll never happen again,” said Sherman.
Since then, Clifford has salvaged more than 200,000 historic artifacts from the site.
Along with the discovery, the film will tell the story of “Black Sam” Bellamy, the captain of the ship.
Bellamy was the colonial era’s most successful pirate and was en route back to Cape Cod to reunite with his love and establish a democratic pirate kingdom, when the ship went down off Wellfleet during a violent storm.
By JUSTIN SAUNDERS, CapeCod.com Newscenter
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