‘The Right Stuff’ Gets A TV Series From Disney Plus, Watch the Trailer
Disney+ got off to a hot start with a great catalog of classic titles and its first original series, The Mandalorian. Since then, the service hasn’t generated a whole lot of excitement. Its subscriber numbers remain impressive, but nothing has come close to generating the kind of buzz that Disney+’s competitors regularly get with their own original programming.
The service finally premieres a legitimate blockbuster next month, in the live-action Mulan, even if it comes with a blockbuster $29.99 “Premier Access” fee. The following month, Disney+ might finally deliver another killer original that doesn’t require an upcharge, with its ambitious-looking adaptation of The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe’s famous book about the early days of the U.S. space program. Wolfe’s tome was first adapted as a movie in 1983, and now gets its own TV series from Disney and National Geographic. Here’s the show’s trailer:
The show’s official synopsis:
At the height of the Cold War in 1959, America fears it is a nation in decline as the Soviet Union dominates the space race. But, the U.S. government has a solution – put a man in space. Newly-formed NASA is given the monumental task, and a group of the nation’s best engineers estimate they’ll need decades to accomplish the feat…but they only have two years. NASA engineers, including rocket scientist Bob Gilruth (Patrick Fischler) and the passionate Chris Kraft (Eric Ladin), work against the clock under mounting pressure from Washington. Together, they hand select seven astronauts from a pool of military test pilots. These are ordinary men, plucked from obscurity, and within days of being presented to the world, they are forged into heroes before they achieve a single heroic act.
Although not a major hit in its day, The Right Stuff movie became one of the most beloved Hollywood productions of the ’80s. In other words: This show has a lot to live up to. But it’s also got the expanded canvas of a television series to work with, which should help in recreating a big portion of Wolfe’s book. The first two episodes of The Right Stuff premiere on Disney+ on October 9.
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