posted 03-12-2013 07:36 AM               

From an earlier report by TVWise:

The 90 minute TV movie is a co-production of BBC Scotland Science and Science Channel and stars William Hurt (Altered States), Bruce Greenwood (Star Trek), Brian Dennehy (Twelfth Night), Joanne Whalley (The Borgias), Kevin McNally (Pirates Of The Caribbean), Henry Goodman (The Merchant Of Venice) and Eve Best (Nurse Jackie). Mark Hedgecoe, Cassian Harrison and Rocky Collins are serving as executive producers, with Laurie Borg and Theresa Ryan Van Graan serving as producers and James Hawes on board as director. Production is due to commence later this month, for an early 2013 premiere on BBC Two.

"This is the gripping story of a brilliant physicist's battle for scientific truth in the dark corridors of big government", said Kim Shillinglaw, the BBC's Commissioning Editor of Science and Natural History. "With an impressive cast, including award-winning actor William Hurt, it promises to be a powerful factual drama for BBC Two and part of our mission to make science programmes ever more surprising and ambitious."

"The Challenger disaster represents an indelible moment in American history - anyone who is old enough to recall it remembers exactly where they were then this terrible tragedy occurred," says Debbie Myers, General Manager and Executive Vice President of Science Channel. "Science Channel is honoured to work with the incomparable William Hurt to tell the story of Richard Feynman, a true-life hero and one of most controversial scientific minds of our time."

posted 03-12-2013 07:42 AM               

Last fall, Science Channel and BBC announced a factual telepic about the investigation surrounding the Challenger space shuttle disaster, with William Hurt set to topline as scientist Richard Feynman.

Now, Variety has your first look at the Oscar-winning thesp in character.

posted 03-19-2013 06:52 AM               

The interaction between the Commission members, the contractors and NASA was subtly managed, given the risk of making this into one huge conspiracy theory. Chairman William Rogers did not come off well, being shown as somewhat of a denier of Feynman's theories and approach. Acting Administrator of NASA, William Graham, was perhaps shown as unnecessarily powerless, given that he had only been in post a few weeks when the disaster happened.

What was surprising (to me at least) was the role of Gen. Kutyna in aiding Feynman and Sally Ride's critical role as a catalyst in hinting towards the problem.

In an hour and a half its hard to condense this weighty matter, so necessarily the role of Armstrong, Yeager and others was not covered.

posted 03-20-2013 09:01 AM               

The Challenger might have been written for William Hurt. Erect, gimlet-eyed and adamantine, he doesn't do cuddles, or doubt. He does withering impatience and intellectual self-belief. He does mean stares and snorts of derision. The sort of qualities that get you slung off Hollywood's A-list for a decade or two, or gives NASA a bloody nose. "How's your integrity?" was his first question for a fellow physicist now working for the government.

The integrity of the script is another thing. The usual caveat came up on screen in a caption before the shuttle had even taken off: to paraphrase, all of this happened - apart from the stuff we've made up. Usually one accepts the push-me/pull-you of dramatic licence, but it gives you pause in a story about provable facts. There were quite a lot of chance meetings in corridors and phone calls and one egregious cab ride that didn't have the ring of truth. And yet thanks to Hurt, at no point was your belief in Feynman's determination to root out the truth shaken.