With NBC's Grimm quickly nearing the end of its six season run, star David Giuntoli has already found his next project. The actor has been tapped to play the male lead in a new drama from the author of The Martian, Andy Weir.
According to Deadline, David Giuntoli will be hopping over to CBS for their drama pilot Mission Control. The pilot, which will be written by Andy Weir, will follow a new generation of NASA scientists and astronauts as they try to juggle their stressful personal and professional lives while working on a major space mission, known as the Durga Mission, where there is very little room for any kind of error. Giuntoli has signed on to play astronaut and mission commander, Stevenson. He'll be joined by Without a Trace and Unforgettable alum Poppy Montgomery as mission flight director, Julie, as well as The Last Ship's Nestor Serrano as Diaz and The Fosters' Levi Fiehler as Izzy. The Martian producer Simon Kinberg will executive produce the pilot along with Weir and others.
Fans of Grimm know that David Giuntoli is used to acting in some seriously heightened situations. His character, Nick, started off as a normal Portland homicide detective, but soon realized that he was one in a long line of guardians charged with keeping balance in the world between humanity and a wide variety of, often very scary, mythological creatures. Nick has always had the ability to make fast and unbelievably correct assumptions about people's pasts and motivations, and once he realizes the true nature of the work he's supposed to do, this manifests as the ability to spot supernatural things no one else can.
Grimm may have seen Giuntoli deftly handle zauberbiests, hexenbiests, fuchsbaus and other creepy things on a regular basis, but Mission Control promises to be a more down to Earth job, even though it deals with NASA. Andy Weir managed to make The Martian a very relatable science fiction story about one man's fight for survival in a harsh landscape that he had to brave all on his own, while those that he worked with had to figure out the most effective way to help him. So, I have no doubt that Mission Control will deal with some very real issues that those working on space missions actually deal with, while giving the audience some solid interpersonal relationship drama. For instance, Poppy Montgomery is listed as the female lead of the show, and I can imagine that it's possible that Julie and Stevenson might end up in each other's orbit at some point, pun intended.
There's no word right now on when Mission Control might hit the small screen, as it hasn't been picked up to series just yet, but we'll be sure to give you more details on the potential show as they become available. Be sure to check out our midseason premiere schedule to see what you can watch in the coming weeks.
