Kristen Stewart is going to star in Prime Video’s The Challenger. The actress, who is known for playing Bella Swan in Twilight, is now going to star in a limited series about astronaut Sally Ride.
As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, the show will be inspired by the novel The New Guys by Meredith E. Bagby. Maggie Cohn has written the show for the screen and serves as showrunner. The Challenger has been greenlit by Prime Video. Here’s all we know about the upcoming show.
The Challenger starring Kristen Stewart is on its way
Sally Ride, the astronaut and physicist, is the first American woman to have flown in space. She was also the youngest astronaut to have done that. The show will be a limited series that will explore Ride’s life as she worked hard to become an astronaut and then later investigated the Challenger space shuttle explosion. While Stewart has starred in exceptional projects like Snow White and the Huntsman, Personal Shopper, Charlie’s Angels, Spencer, Sacramento, and others, The Challenger is her first time starring in a television series.
The show’s synopsis according to The Hollywood Reporter is,
As the members of the 1986 Rogers Commission interrogate the complex inner workings of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to find what, or who, was responsible for the Challenger’s doomed fate, the show explores Commission member Sally Ride’s personal journey. We follow Sally, and the rest of the diverse Astronaut Class of ’78, through the ranks of the shuttle program, through initial recruitment and training, professional and personal highs and lows, until Sally’s historic glass ceiling moment as she becomes the first American woman in space.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, speaking about the upcoming show, Amazon MGM Studios’ head of global television, Peter Friedlander said,
“Sally Ride’s courage and brilliance changed history, and we couldn’t imagine a more powerful actor to bring her story to life than Kristen Stewart,”
He continued,
“The Challenger is an inspiring story about breaking barriers, and we’re thrilled to collaborate with Big Swing Productions, Amblin Television, Nevermind Pictures, Maggie Cohn and James Hawes to share it with our global Prime Video audience.”
Executive producer Kyra Sedgwick said,
“Meredith, Valerie, and I at Big Swing have been passionately developing this project since 2017, and we are thrilled to be partnering with Amblin and Amazon MGM Studios,”
She continued,
“There is no one better than Maggie Cohn to bring to life the complex story of the Challenger and the new class of astronauts recruited by NASA in the early 1970s, all through the eyes of an American hero, Sally Ride.”
The show is directed by James Hawes. Executive producers of the show are Kristen Stewart, Kyra Sedgwick, Meredith E. Bagby, Valerie Stadler, Hawes, and Cohn. The production companies behind the show are Big Swing Productions, Amblin Television and Stewart’s Nevermind Pictures. A specific release window and more cast details are yet to be revealed. Stay tuned for more information.
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Edited by Sohini Biswas