Jason Statham's latest action movie, Mutiny, casts the British hardman aboard a containership packed with mercenaries — and much of the maritime action was filmed not on a studio set but aboard an actual 30-year-old feeder.

Statham plays Cole Reed, a former special forces operative and police officer turned private security contractor who is framed for the murder of his billionaire shipping tycoon boss. His escape route is one of the company's containerships, where events rapidly descend into the sort of confined-space mayhem Statham has made a career out of.

The floating film set was the Sky Light, a 1,042 teu, 149 m boxship built at Szczecin in Poland in 1996. In fleet terms, that makes her a feeder — one of the small-to-mid-sized workhorses that shuttle boxes between regional ports and the major hubs served by deepsea vessels more than twenty times her size — and, at nearly 30, an elderly ship by the standards of a container fleet that has expanded rapidly in recent years.

Ahead of filming in October and November 2024, Transport Malta issued notices to mariners confirming that shooting would take place aboard the ship at Malta Freeport, in Valletta and offshore on Malta's east coast. Other vessels were instructed to give Sky Light and its support craft room during production. The location fits an established pattern: Malta Freeport is one of the Mediterranean's busiest transshipment hubs, and the island has a long record hosting marine-heavy productions, with Captain Phillips among the films that shot key sequences at Malta's water-tank studios.

The vessel has had a rather more eventful career than the average Hollywood prop. Now Vanuatu-flagged, the 12,380 dwt Sky Light has traded under a string of names, including CGM Jean Laborde, MSC Biscay and Mekong Spirit — churn that is routine in the secondhand market, where older feeders regularly change hands, names and flags as they move between owners and trades. It was under the latter name that the ship once appeared on the US sanctions list — the Treasury's Specially Designated Nationals roster, which bars US persons from dealings with designated parties — in connection with the Iran-linked Hafiz Darya Shipping Company. Washington removed the vessel — IMO 9118513 — from the list in November 2011.

Mutiny, directed by Jean-François Richet, the filmmaker behind Plane, runs for 95 minutes and reaches US cinemas today. Reviews have inevitably reached for comparisons with the great enclosed-location action movies, with The Times describing its finale as heading into "Die Hard-style" territory.

John McClane got Nakatomi Plaza. Jason Statham gets a 1,042 teu feeder.

Source: Splash247