“The Whale,” which is sure to be one of the more discussed films of the fall, was born as a minnow in Denver. (I know, I know … but “minnow” sounded more clever, if less accurate, than “calf.”)

The film received a 6-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival and is being hailed as a comeback Oscar contender for star Brendan Fraser. It’s based on a Samuel D. Hunter play first staged by the Denver Center for the Performing Arts Theatre Company under the direction of Hal Brooks in 2012, one year after it was developed at the company’s annual Colorado New Play Summit.

The story is about a dying, reclusive 600-pound online English professor who is hoping to reconnect with his teenage daughter (Sadie Sink of “Stranger Things” in the film version) before it is too late. Along the way, the man, who is also mourning the death of his partner, is befriended by a young man who might be a Mormon missionary.

Hollywood loves a good comeback story, and “it’s almost like the public was just waiting for Fraser’s,” film historian Chris Yogerst told NPR. The goofy, laid-back star of “George of the Jungle” and “The Mummy” franchise revealed many deeply personal struggles in a 2018 interview with GQ Magazine that had millions rooting for his return.

But for aspiring writers, what makes the journey of “The Whale” from page to stage to screen so remarkable is the fact that it came to Denver Center as a blind submission. Meaning the relatively unknown Hunter, who went on to write the very Denver-centric Louie Anderson vehicle “Baskets,” had no agent at the time. He had no way in — so he just mailed it in.

The real miracle of this story might be that the late DCPA literary manager Douglas Langworthy opened his mail and read the script at all. In the weeks leading up to the play’s premiere in Denver, “a big-time New York theater tried to steal it out from under us,” then-artistic director Kent Thompson said.

The play made its New York debut nearly a year after Denver at Playwright’s Horizons, where it caught the eye of director Darren Aronofsky.

The film does not open for general release until Dec. 9, and Denver Film Festival officials say it is too soon to know whether it will be a featured selection at its own 45th annual gathering to be held the previous month.

But Denver Film has a history of grabbing big-buzz films such as “Knives Out” and “La La Land” a few weeks before they go out to the general public.

No matter when it arrives, this film is only one of dozens of cultural offerings I’m looking forward to in the coming months in Denver. And while it would be impossible to do them all justice here, I thought I’d share this bite-sized look at four more intriguing arts happenings I have circled on my calendar:

• David Byrne and Mala Gaonkar’s “Theatre of the Mind”: Four years in the works and much head-scratching speculation later, it’s time to answer the question: What is going on in David Byrne’s head — and what does he plan to do to mine? In this freaky immersive, one-hour, one-person play, you and only 15 others will be guided by one actor through 12 rooms in what is being described as “an interactive deep-dive into the science of the human brain.” One thing we know for certain: “Theater of the Mind” is the largest immersive theatrical adventure ever attempted in Denver. Presented by the Denver Center for the Performing Arts through Dec. 18 at York Street Yards, 3887 Steele St.

• Museum of Contemporary Art Denver’s “The Dirty South”: Even if you’ve been to the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, you’ve never seen anything like this. “The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture and the Sonic Impulse” is MCA Denver’s first deep-dive exhibition, and it will take over the entire building — every gallery over all three floors. This exhibition, employing more than 80 artists from multiple genres, asserts that exploring the legacies and traditions of Black culture in the South through a contemporary lens is critical to our understanding of America’s past, present and future. “There has never been anything like this in Denver or the Mountain West before,” publicist Holly Shrewsbury said. Through Feb. 5 at 1485 Delgany St.

• Wonderbound’s “Penny’s Dreadful”: It just wasn’t right when the seductive Wonderbound dancers had to debut Garrett Ammon’s dark and tantalizing vampire tale “Penny’s Dreadful” amid the hollowing Halloween restrictions of 2021 social distancing. Set in Paris to pop music from the 1980s, the story follows a woman who is thrown into a vampire realm where she must learn to navigate friendships, romance and, good luck, daylight. “All before her thirst for blood becomes all-consuming,” Ammon says. Oct. 20-30 at 3865 Grape St.

• “Apollo: When We Went to the Moon”: Try not to hear Peter Schilling’s voice when the ignition sequence starts and your seat begins to tremble: “4, 3, 2, 1: Earth below us, drifting, falling, floating weightless.” …

OK, so you don’t really get to sit in for Neil Armstrong aboard the 363-foot Apollo 11 rocket in Cape Kennedy, but this multi-sensory exhibition will let you make footprints on a virtual moon, climb aboard a lunar rover and rifle through some space-race artifacts from the U.S. Space and Rocket Center’s archives. Oct. 21-Jan. 22 at Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

Brendan Fraser, who stars in “The Whale,” says the character of Charlie is “far and away the most heroic man I have ever played.”

Courtesy of A-24

A scene from Wonderbound’s “Penny’s Dreadful”

courtesy of Amanda Tipton