ORANGE BEACH, AL – Hollywood is coming to Pleasure Island and some locals may see their faces on the big screen when the movie, USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage, is released.

Filming will take place at Battleship Park aboard the USS Alabama battleship and the USS Drum submarine, but filming is also planned in locations around Orange Beach.

Nicholas Cage is the lead actor in the movie and he will portray Capt. Charles McVay, commander of the ship.

According to Angela Bateman with the Orange Beach Recreation Department, filming will begin on June 19 in the Gulf two miles off of Orange Beach and last about a week. Crews will depart daily from Outcast Charter Docks east of Perdido Pass.

The focus then turns to Wolf Bay, Bateman said, and will involve a plane in the water. She said crews plan to spend about a week there as well. Other sites around Orange Beach are also being considered for filming locations, she said.

“I’ve done casting for four weeks now and we have one week left of accepting talent,” Suzanne Massingill of Barefoot Model & Talent agency. “We’re looking for people to play sailors, some people to play some captains and we need a pool shark, a guy that can really play pool.”

One local, Ed Delmore III, the retail manager for the City of Gulf Shores, is a strong candidate to play one of the sailors, Massingill said. His dad, Ed Delmore Jr., is the police chief of Gulf Shores.

“There’s a guy they are going to book named Ed Delmore there,” she said. “I’m pretty sure he’s going to get a role. Ed had to audition for the part.”

Massingill is still looking to fill speaking roles and anyone interested should send information to usscasting@gmail.com.

“I’m looking for actual actors with snapshots and videos,” she said. The scheduled release date for the film is Memorial Day weekend in 2016.

Mayor Tony Kennon of Orange Beach said some facilities, equipment and services already in place were attractive to the movie makers.

“From what I understand they are to be doing a lot of the water scenes because of the clarity of the water, the support network we have and the abilities with the boats that we have to get it done for them,” Kennon said. “They may be doing, from what I understand, some things on land with our fire tower and things of that nature as far as a prop.”

The USS Indianapolis was sunk by Japanese torpedoes on July 30 1945 after delivering the world’s first atomic bomb to the island of Tinian on July 26 of 1945, according to a website dedicated to the ship, ussindianapolis.org. She was then ordered to Leyte Gulf in the Philippines and while on route there was struck by the torpedoes.

Of the more than 1,100 men on board only about 900 made it into the water. Of that 900 only 317 were finally rescued.

The fact that Navy officials were unaware of the sinking left those in the water undetected for four days and they suffered heavy losses to shark attacks. A PV-1 Ventura Bomber on submarine patrol accidently discovered the survivors floating in the water about four days after the sinking.

A PBY Catalina flying boat eventually made it to the scene and put out supplies, lifeboats and took as many on board as possible until the destroyer USS Cecil Doyle arrived on the scene.

According to the website it is considered the U.S. Navy’s worst at-sea disaster.