There’s a certain segment out there who believe the 1969 mission to the moon was fake. More specifically, they believe filmmaker Stanley Kubrick was brought in to make the whole thing look legit. For those people, recognized by their tinfoil hats, Fly Me to the Moon must feel like validation because that cockamamie idea serves as the premise of the rom-com starring Channing Tatum and Scarlett Johansson.
Directed by Greg Berlanti, (Love, Simon, Life As We Know It) and penned by Rose Gilroy (yep, Tony Gilroy’s daughter), the film centers on a Mad Men-esque marketing exec played by Johansson and a NASA flight instructor who bond while trying to create a fake moon landing as a back-up plan.
Also in the cast are Nick Dillenburg, Anna Garcia, Jim Rash, Noah Robbins, Colin Woodell, Christian Zuber, Donald Elise Watkins, Ray Romano, and Woody Harrelson. The film was originally titled Project Artemis and had Chris Evans in the role eventually taken over by Tatum.
Here’s the synopsis: Starring Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum, FLY ME TO THE MOON is a sharp, stylish comedy-drama set against the high-stakes backdrop of NASA’s historic Apollo 11 moon landing. Brought in to fix NASA’s public image, sparks fly in all directions as marketing maven Kelly Jones (Johansson) wreaks havoc on launch director Cole Davis’s (Tatum) already difficult task. When the White House deems the mission too important to fail, Jones is directed to stage a fake moon landing as back-up and the countdown truly begins…
Apple will release Fly Me to the Moon in theaters on July 12th followed by Apple TV+ at a later date.