It’s been almost 50 years since we touched down on the surface of the moon, and humankind’s thirst for the nectars of a world beyond our atmosphere grows heavier by the day. We’ve sent robots to Mars and made wonderful advancements in space travel technology, but no efforts since have quite matched the miracle of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin setting foot on the face of our chalky white neighbor. Although the grandeur of this feat will be no easy thing to replicate, the filmmaking team newly signed on for the task is at least no stranger to using the big screen as a canvass for great spectacle.
Variety reports that Damien Chazelle, director of Whiplash and this holiday season’s favorite La La Land, will direct a developing picture about Armstrong’s life and moon mission. What’s more, the film–presently titled First Man–will feature Chazelle’s La La Land star Ryan Gosling in the lead role.
As if the notion of a Neil Armstrong biopic, and one directed by the increasingly Oscar-friendly Chazelle, were not a shoe-in for the focus of inevitable Academy Awards discussions, last year’s winner for Best Original Screenplay, Spotlight co-writer Josh Singer, is handling the First Man script.
Though our greatest achievement in space travel does indeed date back nearly half a century, the whimsy of all that is extraterrestrial has stuck with us all the while. It seems as though we get a cinematic celebration of space travel every year or so, with Ridley Scott’s The Martian, Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, and Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity being three recent (and especially creative) examples of the tradition.
And it’s a good tradition! Movies like these have helped maintain interest in space exploration, so much so that NASA worked with director Scott to promote his ’15 picture. No doubt, if Chazelle infuses his Armstrong biopic with the same ardent passion that he pumped into Whiplash and La La Land (not to mention the criminally underseen, delightfully kooky Grand Piano), then the film is sure to get us amped up for the great beyond all over again.
Share your thoughts on a Chazelle-directed, Gosling-starring Armstrong movie below!
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