Movies News Talk
As NASA astronaut Sally Ride stars in her first television main role, Kristen Stewart is about to mark a significant turning point in her 24-year acting career. With the post-apocalyptic romantic drama Love Me and the road trip comedy Sacramento, acting opposite Michael Cera, Maya Erskine, and others, the Oscar-nominated actor has two quite different projects coming up. Still, she will be marking a major turning point following more than two decades in front of the camera.
Deadline claims Stewart has scheduled her first-ever leading television performance as she will be playing trailblazing NASA astronaut Sally Ride in the forthcoming limited series The Challenger. Based on The New Guys book by author Meredith E. Bagby, the project names Steven Spielberg's Amblin Partners and actor Kyra Sedgwick's Big Swing Productions as producers. Ride, the first American woman to fly in space, takes the stage in the narrative. Although a streaming service is not yet linked, Amazon is reported to be almost finalized with a partnership.
Looking at the book The Challenger is based on, the limited series partially relates to NASA's attempts to diversify its ranks. Riding was the first member of the LGBTQ+ community and a woman to soar into space. Apart from a married pair, the program featured the first Black and Asian American astronauts. The book looks at how ego, ambition, and romance developed to create a culture clash; the team passed demanding tests to be members of the team.
Additionally possibly dramatizing Cohn's personal life is the series, which will be written and shown by Maggie Cohn, writer for Narcos: New Mexico. A brief reference to Tam O'Shaughnessy as Ride's 27-year partner in Ride's obituary upon her death in July 2021 During Ride's life, this was not openly known.
Notable in American history, Ride has been discussed often in popular culture. She was played by actress Ellen Wroe in the second Apple TV+ space drama For All Mankind and namedropped in songs by Billy Joel and Janelle Monáe. Still, The Challenger represents the first time Ride will be the focal point of a biopic.
More to develop.
Based on Meredith E. Bagby's book The New Guys, the new series The Challenger has a lot of promise to be a fantastic narrative. The gifted cast and staff of this project makes it quite worthwhile. Though it will be fascinating to see how the narrative develops, anyone interested in learning about the early years of NASA and the space program should definitely find this to be an engaging viewing.
Maggie Cohn, noted for her work on Narcos: New Mexico and The Staircase, will write and show run the series. Cohn's experience in showrunning and writing will provide the show great basis.