If all the buzz around Project Hail Mary and Steven Spielberg’s upcoming Disclosure Day has left you stargazing more than usual of late, then boy do we have some good news for you. Per THR‘s reporting, writer-showrunner Maggie Cohn’s (The Staircase) limited series The Challenger, an adaptation of Meredith E. Bagby’s The New Guys — which chronicles the never-before-told story of NASA’s 1978 astronaut class — has been picked up at Prime Video. And what’s more, Kristen Stewart is attached to star in what will be her first major TV role, playing legendary American astronaut and physicist Sally Ride.
Already two years deep into development, with Slow Horses alum James Hawes attached to direct, Cohn’s series has a two-fold focus. Firstly, the drama is set to tell the story of how Sally Ride became the first American woman in space; and second, the series is also set to go beyond that journey and explore Ride’s role as part of the commission tasked with investigating the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion of 1986, a tragedy that claimed the lives of all seven crew members after the shuttle broke apart just 73 seconds into its flight.
Prime Video’s official description of The Challenger reads: “As the members of the 1986 Rogers Commission interrogate the complex inner workings of NASA to find what, or who, was responsible for the Challenger’s doomed fate, the show explores commission member Sally Ride’s personal journey. We follow Sally, and the rest of the diverse Astronaut Class of ’78, through the ranks of the shuttle program, through initial recruitment and training, professional and personal highs and lows, until Sally’s historic glass ceiling moment as she becomes the first American woman in space.”
Having just seen Stewart handle the complexities of a brilliant, trailblazing woman whose history is marked by tragedy from behind the camera with her deeply moving directorial debut The Chronology Of Water, it will be fascinating to see her move back to being in front of the camera to portray another herself. Only time will tell however if this one features a cameo from Rocky… watch this *ahem* space!
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THR
