Neil Armstrong Biopic Set Up at Universal

Now here is something interesting...

By: Brad Brevet
Published: Wednesday, April 2nd 2008 at 6:02 AM

Ever so often an interesting story pops up in the trades and Variety owns today as we learn that NASA historian James R. Hansen has had his book "First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong" acquired by Universal Pictures for feature film treatment. Hansen got rare direct access to Armstrong, a test pilot-turned-astronaut who was so driven to reach the moon and play the role of American hero that he became known as "the Ice Commander."

Nicole Perlman will pen the script about the first person to set foot on the moon.

It sounds like it may be a bit hokey and simple, but Perlman gives a quote that adds a bit of weight to the story saying, "The closer he got to the moon, the further away he became from his family. He had a family tragedy before Apollo that turned him into this driven astronaut, and he became such a perfect hero that while Buzz Aldrin was announced to be the first man on the moon, NASA reversed its decision because Neil was regarded as more heroic."

The Variety article goes on to say that Armstrong returned from the moon as one of the most famous men on Earth but didn't capitalize on it with a political career or endorsements. He reconnected with his family, shut out the world and became an intensely private man.

On top of this flick, Perlman is working on a script called Challenger which is about Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman's investigation into the 1986 Space Shuttle tragedy, which Nathaniel Kahn is attached to direct, and it will go out to financiers shortly.