Michelle Williams will play Christa McAuliffe in The Challenger
According to Deadline, Michelle Williams has signed on to star in The Challenger, a biopic about the 1986 space shuttle tragedy. The actress will play Christa McAuliffe, the New Hampshire high school teacher who was selected to join NASA’s Teacher in Space Project, and who perished along with six other crewmembers when the Challenger exploded 73 seconds after takeoff.
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Martin Zandvilet will direct the film from a script by Jayson Rothwell. John and Art Linson will produce alongside Argent Pictures’ Ben Renzo with a tentative May 2019 production start date.
“We are more than humbled and extremely grateful for the opportunity to help tell the story of Christa McAuliffe and the Challenger mission,”Renzo said. “Christa McAuliffe’s legacy deserves the strength, courage, experience and humanity that Michelle Williams brings to the role. The entire Argent team is honored and eager to responsibly capture and share the events and personal journeys of those surrounding this important historical moment with audiences around the world to help remember and further appreciate the sacrifices Christa and rest of the Challenger crew made to further our journey into space.”
Argent partners Jill Ahrens, Ryan Ahrens, Drew Brees, Tony Parker, Michael Finley and Derrick Brooks are executive producing.
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Williams will next be seen in Venom, which opens this week. The actress has starred in some of the most critically acclaimed films of the last decade, including 2017’s Manchester by the Sea, in which she received her fourth Oscar nomination.
(Photo credit: Getty Images)
