2013 is the year of such films like Joseph Kosinski’s Oblivion, Sebastián Cordero’s Europa Report and Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity, which proves that space travel is back to hovering around the forefront of the American psyche. (And that’s not even bringing up J.J Abrams projects.) Science and space funding will take a big hit next year, so it’s a good time to appreciate NASA for the amazement they’ve instilled in us over the years.
With that out of the way, now we can talk about the people behind the scenes that allowed parts of that amazement to exist. Deadline reports Warner Bros. tapped U.K. transplant Richard Cordiner to write a screenplay based on Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo, written by Nicholas de Monchaux, which tracks the unlikely source for the spacesuits of the Apollo program.
Spacesuit tells the unique true story of how a team of bra and girdle designers from Playtex - led by a former TV repairman, a car mechanic and a “crew of spirited seamstresses" - did what NASA couldn’t and successfully designed a working spacesuit for astronauts like Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong. I’d know more details if I’d read the book already, which I’m interested in doing now.
Cordiner worked in advertising in San Francisco when his script The Shark is Not Working found its way to the Black List a couple of years ago. That script delved into the backstory behind the making of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, and was good enough to land him a two picture deal with Warner Bros.
