Ron Howard on telling the true story of his new film, ‘Eden’

August 21, 2025

Jude Law and Vanessa Kirby star in Ron Howard’s film ‘Eden.’ (Jasin Boland)

The shocking true story of a group of outsiders who abandoned civilization to live on a remote island comes to life in Eden.

Ron Howard directed the new film, which arrives in theaters on Friday, and he says the idea for it first came about 15 years ago.

“I was on a family vacation in the Galápagos, which had been one of those bucket list items from childhood,” Howard told ABC Audio.

His daughter Bryce Dallas Howard joined him on the once-in-a-lifetime trip. There, the pair learned about Dr. Friedrich Ritter, the Wittmers and the other real-life European settlers who lived on Floreana Island in the Galápagos Islands, Ecuador, in the 1920s.

“We went to the museum of the Galápagos and one whole room was dedicated to this group of people and this true crime thriller that emerged from their adventures. Bryce immediately said, ‘I think this is a movie.’ And I said, ‘I think it might be, too.’ And I started doing the research,” Howard said.

The rest of their Galápagos trip was spent learning as much as they could. The idea stayed with Howard, evolving to the point where he felt it was time to finally make this movie.

“You can’t write this sort of thing,” Howard said of the true story, which has a star-studded cast including Jude Law, Sydney Sweeney, Ana de Armas and Vanessa Kirby.

“You had to love it and be sort of creatively committed to the idea of bringing these kinds of characters to the screen, because things get pretty radical and pretty extreme, and they had to be ready to go there,” Howard said of his cast. “They really did. And they brought so much nuance and depth and emotion to the process that I was really moved and thrilled by the collaboration. It meant a lot to me.”