Hollywood has finally found a screenwriter to bring NASA's troubled involvement with Russian space station Mir to the big screen, enabling the long-stalled project to start moving forward again.
Overbrook Entertainment, a production unit of Universal, said Wednesday it picked Geoff Rodkey to adapt Bryan Burrough's book Dragonfly: NASA and the Crisis Aboard the Mir.
The project is currently titled "Star City" after the nickname of Russia's Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center. Although Will Smith will produce the film as head of Overbrook, he is unlikely to play a role in front of the camera.
Rodkey is best known as an Emmy-nominated writer for the late-night television series "Politically Incorrect." Universal previously filmed another of his screenplays as the upcoming comedy "Starkers, Texas," starring Matt Dillon and Billy Bob Thornton. If all goes well, "Star City" will be his first produced script to focus on space activity.
He will earn "mid to high six figures" on the deal, according to Variety.
The original book, published last December, was an unshrinking account of the problems -- both cultural and technological -- that plagued U.S.-Russian orbital collaboration in the late 1990s. Not only did the litany of Mir disasters seem handmade for Hollywood, but Burrough's fine eye for both human details and overarching political issues in his reconstruction of day-to-day life both aboard the troubled station and back on the ground in Star City earned widespread praise from aerospace insiders and the wider press alike.
Overbrook took an early interest in the book, optioning the film rights nearly two months before publication. However, the project then languished while Universal looked for a screenwriter.
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