Movies about the space race era have been gaining traction lately in Hollywood. The film Hidden Figures kicked off the mini-boomlet in 2016, and when it did well, Universal Pictures followed suit this year with Ryan Gosling’s First Man. With the reviews of Gosling film through the roof ahead of the film’s Oct. 12 premiere, it’s natural other projects would hop into the race. The latest film won’t be about NASA’s successes though. Instead, it will focus on the first significant tragedy the US faced, with a movie about The Challenger in the works.
For those who are too young to remember, the Challenger spacecraft was one of six "partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft" which comprised NASA’s space shuttle program from the mid-1970s through the very early aughts. They included such vehicles as the Enterprise, the Columbia, the Discovery, and the Atlantis. Their mission, which began in 1976, became so routine, the idea of going into space for civilians seemed a natural next step.
In the mid-1980s, a competition was held among science teachers across the United States to see who would be picked to go on a teaching mission as part of the Challenger crew, to deliver live science classes from orbit to schoolkids across the US. The winning teacher’s name was Christa McAuliffe.
She never made it all the way into space. Now her story will be the focus of the film, with Michelle Williams set to play her.
According to Deadline, which broke the news:
The plot will focus on McAuliffe’s journey from schoolteacher to astronaut, and presumably her posthumous award of the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.
Producer Ben Renzo seemed grateful for the opportunity to tell her story.
With production aiming to start in the spring of next year, The Challenger will most like launch into theaters sometime in 2020.
Source: Read Full Article