Disney Wants to Help You Share The Finest Hours of Your Life

Disney’s The Finest Hours is based on the true story of the Pendleton rescue, which proved to be the most daring sea rescue of the U.S. Coast Guard. The movie is made from the book with the same title by Michael J. Tougias and Casey Sherman. In the 1950s during the Korean War, Coast Guard officers assisted arranging the evacuation of the Korean Peninsula at the time of the first North Korean attack. Congress established Public Law 679, known as the Magnuson Act on August 9, 1950. This act held the Coast Guard with guarding the security of the United States’ ports and harbors on a permanent basis. Along with this duty, the Coast Guard set up a series of weather ships in the north Pacific Ocean, helping civilian, military aircraft and ships in distress. The Coast Guard maintained a string of various LORAN stations in Japan and Korea that helped the United Nations army. LORAN stands for long range navigation and was a hyperbolic radio navigation system made in the United States at the same time World War II occurred.

On February 18, 1952 the T2 tankers SS Fort Mercer and SS Pendleton broke in half at the same time a severe “nor’easter” was occurring off the New England coast. A nor’easter is a small pressure area that frequently passes off the New England and southeast Canada Atlantic coastline. Nor’easters are capable of causing severe coastal flooding, coastal corrosion, and hurricane pressure winds or blizzard conditions. Pendleton was not able to make a distress call during the time of the ship’s disaster. Pendleton was found on the strange shore radar from which Chatham, Massachusetts, Lifeboat Station was equipped while there was a search for Fort Mercer.

The Making of The Finest Hours

The screen rights to the 2009 novel The Finest Hours was acquired by Walt Disney Pictures on August 12, 2011. Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson wrote the script based on the novel and meetings they organized with the survivors. Originally Robert Schwentke was hired to direct the film in May 2013, but, he left the project in order to direct The Divergent Series: Insurgent. Craig Gillespie had become the replacement director in April 2014 and casting was done from April through October 2014.

The film production started on September 8, 2014 in Quincy, Massachusetts. The movie was being shot at Fore River Shipyard on October 27 in Quincy, Massachusetts. Producers were also fixed to film at South Shore and afterward move to Chatham in December. During the start of December, the filming was taken in the town Marshfield. Affleck was seen playing the piano at Symphony Hall in Boston at the same time they were shooting the film in Chatham. Affleck made the comment about the shooting wishing it to continue, saying, “one of the best”; In addition, more filming was done in Norwell, MA.

Two release dates were originally set for The Finest Hours, the first was April 15, 2016 and then changed to October 9, 2015. The film’s final release date that is declared, is on January 29, 2016. There are two trailers for The Finest Hours, the first trailer was released on July 8, 2015 and the second trailer was released on November 11, 2015.

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