Lionsgate Developing Biopic About Astronaut Sally Ride with Director Jill Soloway at the Helm
Sally Ride was the first American woman in space, inspiring a whole new generation of girls to become astronauts. Now the story of her life and the mission that put her in the history books will be turned into a movie by Transparent creator Jill Soloway and Lionsgate.
Lionsgate sent out a press release announcing the Sally Ride movie today. The film is simply titled Ride, and is based on an original spec script by Krystin Ver Linden that was rewritten by Cassie Pappas. Nathan Kahane, President of the Lionsgate Motion Picture Group had this to say about the project:
“Sally Ride is an American Hero and icon whose life and career was and is endlessly fascinating and inspirational. In the hands of Jill Soloway and our tremendous team of producers, we feel we have the right storytellers to honor and properly tell Sally’s incredible story.”
Sally Ride was selected to be an astronaut by NASA Astronaut Group 8 in 1978, the first class to select women. She applied to the program while completing her PhD in physics at Stanford after seeing an ad in the student newspaper. Out of 8,000 applicants, only 35 were selected, and Ride was one of those people.
After entering NASA in 1979, Ride worked as a mission specialist, serving as the ground-based capsule communicator (CapCom) for the second and third Space Shuttle flights, and helped develop the Space Shuttle’s “Canadarm” robot arm. But it wouldn’t be until June 18, 1983, that she became the first American woman in space as a crew member on Space Shuttle Challenger for STS-7, NASA’s seventh space shuttle mission.
Jill Soloway will also be producing along with Andrea Sperling through their Topple production banner. They’ll be joined by Kristin Burr (Cruella, Christopher Robin) and her Burr! Productions. This is another major project for Soloway, who is also slated to write and direct an adaptation of the pulp adventure character Red Sonja for Millennium Films.
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