Michelle Williams to Play Astronaut in ‘The Challenger’

In late January of 1986, every television across America was tuned in to see the launch of the NASA space shuttle, Challenger. Sadly, the shuttle broke apart after only 73 seconds of flight leaving the entire crew of seven members dead. Fast forward thirty plus years, and Hollywood is retelling the story once more.

The Challenger will star Michelle Williams as the late astronaut and high school teacher, Christa McAuliffe.  The New Hampshire native was selected to be a part of NASA’s Teacher in Space Project. Although not a true astronaut, McAuliffe took a year off from teaching to train for the experience. While in space, she would contribute to the crew by doing scientific experiments and she had planned to teach two 15 minute lessons from space that would broadcast to millions of school children. After the tragedy, McAuliffe was awarded many honors and is historically known for her bravery and achievement.

While very little details are known of The Challenger, Variety reports that John and Art Linson and Ben Renzo will produce the film. Additionally, Martin Zandvliet has signed on to direct with the script written by Jayson Rothwell. Production is expected to begin in early summer 2019. Michelle Williams can be seen alongside Tom Hardy in the recent release of Venom, in theaters now.