Mark Wahlberg is in negotiations to star in the Summit Entertainment true story adaptation Deepwater Horizon, which has been in development at the studio since March 2011.

The plot is based on the December 2010 New York Times article Deepwater Horizon's Final Hour by David Barstow, David Rohde, and Stephanie Saul. The article chronicles the final 48 hours leading up to the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion off the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, which caused the worst oil spill since the Exxon Valdez.

Mark Wahlberg will play the rig's No. 2 manager in this adaptation which shows the events that lead up to the disaster, along with the acts of heroism by those who tried to rescue crew members in the water, most of which have not been made public. The explosion killed 11 people and injured 16 others.

J.C. Chandor (Margin Call, All Is Lost) is directing from a screenplay originally written by Matthew Sand (Ninja Assassin), which was reworked by Matthew Michael Carnahan (World War Z). Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Mark Vahradian are producing, with a late spring/early summer production start being targeted.

Mark Wahlberg most recently starred in Transformers: Age of Extinction, and he will next be seen in The Gambler. The actor is no stranger to maritime true-story adaptations, starring in the 2000 thriller The Perfect Storm.