Posted on 10/03/2018 7:59:53 AM PDT by EdnaMode
Michelle Williams is set to star as Christa McAuliffe in The Challenger, a feature film about the 1986 space shuttle tragedy being produced by John and Art Linson and Argent Pictures’ Ben Renzo. Land of Mine director Martin Zandvliet will direct the biopic of sorts that is penned by Jayson Rothwell. A May 2019 production start is being eyed.
The Challenger will follow the true story of McAuliffe, a New Hampshire high school teacher who was selected to join NASA’s Teacher in Space Project. She eventually became part of the astronaut crew on the Space Shuttle Challenger, which launched from Cape Canaveral on January 28, 1986. The shuttle exploded 73 seconds after takeoff, on live TV, killing all seven aboard.
McAuliffe’s memory and mission left a lasting impression and legacy on her family, community and teachers worldwide (as the first teacher in space, McAuliffe was to have conducted classes during the mission). Many schools have been named in her honor, and she posthumously received the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.
“We are more than humbled and extremely grateful for the opportunity to help tell the story of Christa McAuliffe and the Challenger mission,” Renzo said. “Christa McAuliffe’s legacy deserves the strength, courage, experience and humanity that Michelle Williams brings to the role. The entire Argent team is honored and eager to responsibly capture and share the events and personal journeys of those surrounding this important historical moment with audiences around the world to help remember and further appreciate the sacrifices Christa and rest of the Challenger crew made to further our journey into space.”
Argent partners Jill Ahrens, Ryan Ahrens, Drew Brees, Tony Parker, Michael Finley and Derrick Brooks are executive producing.
Williams, a four-time Oscar nominee including most recently as Supporting Actress for 2017’s Manchester By the Sea, is next up on the big screen in Sony’s Venom opposite Tom Hardy and Riz Ahmed. It opens wide Friday.
She also just wrapped production on Bart Freundlich’s After the Wedding with Julianne Moore, and now has now started work on FX’s eight-episode limited series starring Sam Rockwell as Bob Fosse and Williams as Gwen Verdon. That project hails from Hamilton’s Lin-Manuel Miranda and Thomas Kail, Dear Evan Hansen‘s Steven Levenson, Fox 21 TV Studios and FX Productions.
Williams is repped by WME, Brillstein Entertainment and Bloom, Hergott.
The Challenger disaster is a vastly bigger horrific American event than a depiction of one astronaut and Hollywood’s drama will try to convey. I was a high school student at the time (watching live with fellow students) and it still has a profound emotional impact upon me and countless Americans. President Reagan was a true leader who helped get America through the sadness. Let’s not forget NASA was to blame and STILL did not learn any lessons as further catastrophe of the Shuttle program would reveal.
Judy Resnick was quite a woman and astronaut. I’m not looking forward to this movie. It was a traumatic event for so many of us, and for many different reasons. I can’t imagine Hollywood doing this right.
Egads! I first read that as “Michelle Robinson”
If you ever have a chance to visit the Space Center in Huntsville, Alabama they have this display dedicated to America’s female astronauts.
The educations of these women were truly impressive. Advanced degrees in engineering and physics from MIT, Cal, Purdue, etc.
N-eed
A-nother
S-even
A-stronauts.
INCOMING....
Unless Hollywood insists on a transgender playing this role, they should immediately cancel this movie!
Wayne was so very unbelievable as Khan. Especially with all that makeup.
She was wonderful as Cha Cha Muldowney
Oh my god ! She WAS Shirley !
thanks for reminding me. I haven’t thought of that movie in a long time. IMDB has occupied a slot in my life that it didn’t before.
I haven’t been there, but we pass by Huntsville on the interstate every year or so when we drive to the Panhandle. Both hubby and I were always fascinated with the space program as kids in the 60’s, and it continues to this day, so one of these times, we will have to add that destination as a stop on the way south. Thanks for the tip. It’s a place I’ve always wanted to go to.
Thanks. I was the test conductor that proof tested the LH2 tank on that mission. Since the booster burned through the side of the LH2 tank, at first it was thought the tank had failed causing the incident. NOT a good day.
John Wayne modeled his walk/talk style from Wyatt Earp who was working the studios
I thought it was because his real name was Marion....
Then there was that movie in which he played a German merchant ship captain at the outbreak of WWII, trying to get to safety, western drawl and all!
Looked it up- The Sea Chase (1955).
Who was the hottest woman on the cover of Time?
I was just wondering how they would screw this up and make it a hate film for white men, America, religious people, greedy capitalists, and conservatives. One or more of these groups will make decisions that cause the disaster and there also may be right wing sabotage because their McCauliffe is a raging leftist feminist, LGBTetc crusading teacher. The disaster will take up 10 minutes of the film and the remaining 3 hours will be the aftermath. During the disaster, they will show one the astronauts praying, and the others take out time from their fearful screaming and calmly mock him for thinking an invisible old man, that astronauts were never able to find, is going to save them. We will see the guilty doing some sneaky looking moves while the space craft is still on the ground. A leftist reporter will find and release hidden facts and that prove who is to blame. The guilty people will be put on trial and the whole world will put on massive protests and flaming riots demanding that they are guilty and should be locked up forever without trial. The trial is held, but it only take 90 seconds. The astronauts' children will be sterilized and the wives will be found insane and will be locked up as criminally insane.
See post #56
“John Wayne was a cross dresser”
BLASPHEMY!
Too old now.................
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