We are so absolutely thrilled to share a brand-new trailer for Disney+ and National Geographic’s upcoming take on the brave men (and their wives) of the Mercury 7- “The Right Stuff.”
We’ll see Major John Glenn (Patrick J. Adams), Lieutenant Commander Alan Shepard (Jake McDorman), Captain Gordo Cooper (Colin O’Donoghue),Wally Schirra (Aaron Staton), Scott Carpenter (James Lafferty), Deke Slayto (Micah Stock), and Gus Grissom, (Michael Trotter) as the main players of the Space Program.
Nora Zehetner plays Annie Glenn, Shannon Lucio is Louise Shepard, and Eloise Mumford plays Trudy Cooper.
Mark Lafferty (“Halt and Catch Fire“) is showrunner, as well as executive producer. Jennifer Davisson and Leonardo DiCaprio also executive produce through their Appian Way production banner along with Will Staples (Animals), Danny Strong (Empire), Howard Korder (Boardwalk Empire), and Chris Long (The Americans) directs the first episode. Martins Scorsese’s longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker also acts as a consulting producer, and Michael Hampton oversaw production for Appian Way as a co-producer.
You can see the trailer here.
At the height of the Cold War in 1959, the Soviet Union dominates the space race. To combat a national sentiment of fear and decline, the U.S. government conceives of NASA’s Project Mercury, igniting a space race with the Soviets and making instant celebrities of a handful of the military’s most accomplished test pilots. These individuals, who come to be known as the Mercury Seven, are forged into heroes long before they have achieved a single heroic act. The nation’s best engineers estimate they need several decades to make it into outer space. They are given two years. The astronauts’ strengths are equaled only by their flaws. As the men succumb to the temptations that surround them, Project Mercury threatens to come apart. At the heart of the historic drama populated by deeply human characters are two men who become icons — Glenn and Shepard — as they jockey to be the first man in space. The entire program is nearly brought to its knees by their intense rivalry. The series also follows NASA’s engineers, who work against the clock as pressures mount from Washington and a transfixed public. And we witness the underbelly of a myth-making propaganda machine headed by NASA’s PR department and aided by the writers and editors at LIFE Magazine.
“The Right Stuff” debuts on Disney+ on October 9th, 2020.
