Moby Dick is a story that has been tackled time and time again, and not just through film, but in all forms of entertainment and not just with the traditional whaling story either, but seeing the traditional story adapted time and time again, modernised, reworked, sometimes into barely recognisable stories.

Now though, Moby Dick could be coming back to our screens in a more traditional viewing, the way Herman Melville might have wanted it filmed with William Hurt playing Captain Ahab and Ethan Hawke playing Starbuck, his first officer.

It sounds a great line-up already, just with the two leading characters. Ethan Hawke is a very underused actor and William Hurt a superb one, together I can imagine the chemistry could be akin to Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington in Crimson Tide, for they will be pitted against each other.

Starbuck, the first officer, is the dissenting voice against Captain Ahab's single minded mission, and that could really provide for a secondary core of the film over and above the battle between Ahab and himself, aka the Whale.

According to the story in Collider the Tele Munchen Group, one of Germany's largest media corporations, is producing the film and has invested some US $25.5 million into the film and are promising that there's going to be a powerful and emotional story.

That story comes from Nigel Williams, who has written a number of historical based television works, and with Hurt and Hawke starring. To me this is very promising, I would have been doubtful had the money been invested and all the talk been about the effects and the whale then I would have been, however the effects are briefly mentioned and the focus is on the story and the two lead actors, that's great news.

I say bring it on, I mean how familiar are people with the previous versions?