India, Oct. 17 -- In Whalefall, a survival thriller released in cinemas this month, a diver is swallowed whole by a sperm whale, the one whale with a throat wide enough to take a person, though no whale has ever been known to swallow anyone.

The only animal with documented cases of swallowing people whole is a snake, the reticulated python.

Director Brian Duffield calls his film "the opposite of Jaws", the 1975 Steven Spielberg thriller about a man-eating shark, because he hopes audiences leave in awe of whales instead of being afraid of them. "I think in a lot of ways the whale is the hero of the movie," he told Reuters at the London premiere on October 5.

Based on Daniel Kraus's 2023 novel, Whalefall follows a teenager who dives off ...