TV

Martin Sheen cast on Animal Planet ‘Whale’ flick

Martin Sheen will star in “The Whale,” an original movie set to air on Animal Planet.

Sheen (“Apocalypse Now,” “The West Wing”) will play Old Thomas Nickerson in the two-hour movie, a co-production between Animal Planet and BBC Factual Productions.

There’s no airdate yet.

“The Whale” is based on the true tales of Nickerson, who was the cabin boy on the ill-fated whaling ship the Essex, which was attacked and sunk by a sperm whale in the Pacific Ocean in 1820.

(Sheen will play the older Nickerson.)

The movie was shot on location in Malta and in London.

“The Whale” is based on Capt. George Pollard and First Mate Owen Chase’s real-life accounts of the Essex, which is said to have inspired Herman Melville’s epic novel, “Moby Dick,” which was published over 30 years later in 1851.

The movie will co-star Jonas Armstrong as Chase, Adam Rayner as Pollard and Charles Furness as the young Nickerson. It includes “breath-taking underwater footage,” according to Animal Planet.