Is The Boys in the Boat based on a true story?

❘ Published: 2023-12-18T08:00:00

The cast of The Boys in the Boat, based on a true story.

Amazon MGM Studios

George Clooney is set to sit in the director’s chair once again with his latest feature movie The Boys in the Boat – but is it based on a true story?

Starring Callum Turner and Joel Edgerton, George Clooney‘s latest film The Boys in the Boat is set to release in US theaters on December 25, 2023, with the UK release date being January 12, 2024.

The movie’s synopsis reads: “During the height of the Great Depression, members of the rowing team at the University of Washington get thrust into the spotlight as they compete for gold at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.”

Sadly, Clooney himself isn’t starring in it – but is The Boys in the Boat based on a true story? Here’s what we know.

Is The Boys in the Boat based on a true story?

Yes. George Clooney’s new film The Boys in the Boat is based on a true story first depicted in the 2013 book of the same name by Daniel James Brown.

In the original book, the action focuses on Joe Rantz, who is played in the movie by Callum Turner. According to Brown, Rantz came from a small town near Seattle in an extremely poor family. His mother died from lung cancer when he was four, with his father later abandoning him.

Though the book goes into more detail about his upbringing – from living with his aunt to a stepmother who outwardly hated him – The Boys in the Boat movie also highlights that Rantz had to hunt, fish, and care for himself aged 15, living in an abandoned car.

Studying in Washington, Rantz then needed a job, finding out that a wage came with the school’s rowing team – if he could qualify. Both the book and the movie follow the journey of Rantz and the seven other young men who made it on the team, coached under the watchful eye of Al Ulbrickson (Joel Edgerton). The team goes from strength to strength, taking on national finals on the road to competing in the 1936 Olympics under the watchful eye of Adolf Hitler.

In real life, Rantz married his first love Joyce Simdars after the Olympics, and they remained together for the rest of their lives. Having originally studied chemical engineering, he graduated in 1939 before working for the Boeing Corporation for 35 years. By the time Daniel James Brown met Rantz, seven members of the rowing team had already died. Rantz died shortly after in 2007, with his daughter Judy helping Brown to tell his story through recorded tapes she’d kept over the years.

The Boys in the Boat comes to US theaters on December 25. Check out more of our TV & Movies coverage below: