posted April 16, 2007 02:55 PM               

Warner Brothers' and Clint Eastwood's option on James Hansen's authorized biography of Neil Armstrong, First Man expired on March 1 and was not renewed.

Reportedly, Eastwood felt that the film would require "too much heavy lifting" in light of having just tackled two very large projects on Iwo Jima.

When word got out that Eastwood had stepped out, other production companies and studios stepped in. Reportedly, the most serious of those interests is from 21 Laps Entertainment and director Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum and the upcoming movie adaptation of The Flash), working with Twentieth Century Fox.

21 Laps has looked to screenwriter Nicole Perlman (no relation) to develop a screenplay based on First Man. Perlman previously wrote the screenplay for Challenger, the upcoming film about Richard Feynman and the 1986 space shuttle accident, directed by Philip Kaufman. Reportedly, Perlman and Hansen have been in touch.

posted April 02, 2008 10:10 AM               

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Studio acquires Hansen's Neil Armstrong tome

Universal has acquired nonfiction tome "First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong" and will turn it into a film about the first person to set foot on the moon.

NASA historian James R. Hansen got rare direct access to Armstrong, a test pilot-turned-astronaut who was so driven to reach the moon and play the role of American hero that he became known as "the Ice Commander."

Nicole Perlman will write the script. Temple Hill Entertainment partners Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey produce.

"The closer he got to the moon, the further away he became from his family," Perlman said. "He had a family tragedy before Apollo that turned him into this driven astronaut, and he became such a perfect hero that while Buzz Aldrin was announced to be the first man on the moon, NASA reversed its decision because Neil was regarded as more heroic."

Armstrong returned from the moon as one of the most famous men on Earth but didn't capitalize on it with a political career or endorsements. He reconnected with his family, shut out the world and became an intensely private man.

Perlman just rewrote her script "Challenger, a project about Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman's investigation into the 1986 Space Shuttle tragedy. Originally set up at Media 8 with "The Right Stuff" helmer Phil Kaufman, "Challenger" now has Nathaniel Kahn ("My Architect") attached to direct, and it will go out to financiers shortly.

Perlman is also scripting "Kiss and Tango" for Fox 2000, and she is writing a pic about the Wright brothers for National Geographic Films based on the book "One Day at Kitty Hawk" by John Evangelist Walsh.

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posted April 02, 2008 10:30 AM               

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"The closer he got to the moon, the further away he became from his family," Perlman said. "He had a family tragedy before Apollo that turned him into this driven astronaut, and he became such a perfect hero that while Buzz Aldrin was announced to be the first man on the moon, NASA reversed its decision because Neil was regarded as more heroic."

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Is this going to be The Right Stuff Part 2? I hope there is a little more emphasis on fact in the movie than this quote would indicate.

posted April 02, 2008 11:25 AM               

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NASA historian James R. Hansen got rare direct access to Armstrong, a test pilot-turned-astronaut who was so driven to reach the moon and play the role of American hero that he became known as "the Ice Commander."

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posted April 02, 2008 11:41 AM               

Citing "First Man" (softcover edition), page 436:

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All across the Moon's rocky back side, the part never visible from the Earth and densely pockmarked by 4.6 billion years of meteroid bombardment, Aldrin and Collins excitedly pointed out one spectacular feature after another, while the "Ice Commander," as a few astronauts privately had come to call Armstrong, was more restrained in expressing what was his own genuine enthusiasm.

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After Gemini 8, other astronauts began calling [Armstrong] the "ice commander"...

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Hansen: In your book (Last Man on the Moon), you have a chapter entitled "The Ice Commander," a nickname that some of you guys used for Al Shepard. But the dramatic highpoint of that chapter in terms of events at least is the landing of Apollo 11. So in a way doesn't the reader get the impression that you are also referring to Armstrong as "The Ice Commander" or at least "The Ice Commander" type?

Cernan: I hadn't thought about that, but, yes, Neil was also an "Ice Commander," if in a different way than Al.

Hansen: Do you know if anyone ever called Neil the Ice Commander?

Cernan: Oh, someone probably did. In a joking way, Al himself might have thrown that back at us.

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posted April 13, 2008 02:31 PM               

(The article also makes the common error of thinking that "One small step..." was scripted, when all indications are that Armstrong devised the line during the flight.)

Hollywood hunts star to play first man on the Moon

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It was one small step for man but could be one giant leap in the career of an actor. Neil Armstrong, the first man on the Moon, is to be the subject of a Hollywood biopic. The only question now is: who is worthy of filling the spaceboots of the 20th-century icon who 'came in peace for all mankind'?

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posted April 14, 2008 05:51 PM               

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Originally posted by fabfivefreddy:
Ed Harris

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Now that would be interesting. He might be a bit too old for the part, though?

posted April 15, 2008 02:31 AM               

I think you'd need someone a little more complex & offbeat to really capture Armstrong.

Cheers,
Matt

posted April 15, 2008 10:11 AM               

Tom Hanks is the only guy I can think of that could have pulled off Apollo 13 the way he did, and besides his age they would never cast him in the lead of another Apollo-related movie. That would just confuse average people who would think it's a sequel to A13.

But Matt is versatile enough to play a serious role, too, in addition to his action hero skills. Don't forget how he got his start with Good Will Hunting. And Matt is by far the most intellectual of today's current big name actors and has a great screen presence. And he's Jason Bourne!! Did I mention that?

On a side note, I haven't yet read the book but I hope Buzz, Mike, and the rest of the team aren't left in the shadows. That was one of the things that made Apollo 13 great, is that it wasn't about just one person. Might be tough though given the entire basis for the story is Armstrong.

I wonder what the movie will do for the price of Armstrong autographs. They can't go any higher, can they??

posted April 15, 2008 11:59 AM               

He is good for what he does but certainly has little charisma or nuance to his performances.

posted April 15, 2008 12:17 PM               

You could then use your more bankable stars in supporting roles, such as having Ed Harris reprise his role as Gene Kranz.

posted April 16, 2008 09:04 AM               

The screenwriter has his work cut out for him, too. I can't imagine filming the movie along the lines of the book -- I would think they might use the storyline of the Apollo 11 mission with flashbacks to cover the biographical parts.

It seems to me that the really hard part will be making it "exciting". Not to say that Neil Armstrong's life so far hasn't been exciting -- it's just that when exciting things happened to him, he handled them in a sober and methodical way. Such as... when the LLTV went berserk and he ejected with one second to spare... no big deal, you eject, gather up the parachute, and then head to the office to do some paperwork. If they try to turn it into some kind of emotional, "Oh my God, I could have been killed" kind of moment, then it won't capture his personality.

Definitely an interesting challenge.

posted April 17, 2008 05:05 AM               

It will be interesting to see how the story plays out on the big screen. It's does seem like a tough story to convert to the big screen. But it's been done with others that I didn't think were possible.

posted April 17, 2008 04:33 PM               

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Originally posted by mikelarson:
On a side note, I haven't yet read the book but I hope Buzz, Mike, and the rest of the team aren't left in the shadows.

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Jim