What if the moon landing really was a hoax? That's the question explored in the new film 'Fly Me to the Moon,' a romantic comedy set against the backdrop of the Apollo 11 moon launch during the Space Race of the late 1960s. Stars Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum, as well as director Greg Berlanti, spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about what drew them to the script. Plus, they even shared their thoughts on moon landing conspiracy theorists. 'Fly Me to the Moon' flies into theaters July 12.
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00:00It was such a great script. You just don't read them that often.
00:05What if the moon landing was a hoax? That's the question explored in the new film Fly Me to the
00:10Moon, a romantic comedy set against the backdrop of the Apollo 11 moon launch during the space
00:14race of the late 1960s. Producer and star Scarlett Johansson, who plays marketing specialist Kelly
00:20Jones, opened up to The Hollywood Reporter about how the film came to be.
00:24So I have a production company called These Pictures, and we developed this story from an
00:29original idea like that we had in our company. And then we hired Rose Gilroy to write the script,
00:36and she did such a phenomenal job with the tone of it that when I read it, it was just,
00:41it was so entertaining. I loved the read so much that I couldn't not play the character of Kelly
00:48because it was so great. It was like, I couldn't think of, I was thinking like who else could do
00:52it? And of course I have like many peers that are incredibly talented that could do it. And
00:56then I would just be jealous of them. And so I was like, I can't, I'm not going to give this to
00:59somebody else. Johansson's co-star Channing Tatum, who plays launch director Cole Davis,
01:04weighed in on what he felt made the film's script unique.
01:07It's not a pre-existing IP. It's completely original, but it also has like, it has characters
01:13that are, that really talk to each other. You know, there was the dialogue is, is really,
01:17really well done. And, and like the character, I guess, development without making it all sort
01:23of over-rotten and like heavy, it keeps it light and fun, but yet keeping the drama and the
01:30dramatics intact. Director Greg Berlanti also spoke about what made him want to helm the project.
01:35I mean, it's not that often that I'm sent material that was, first of all, it was,
01:39Scarlett was starring in it. She was producing and she was throwing her weight behind a big budget
01:45original drama, comedy, romance, you know, it had everything. And honestly, those are, that's,
01:52it reminded me of the kind of movies I used to go see every weekend as a kid that studios were
01:56making all the time then. We can't afford to lose to the Russians. We need to shoot
02:06backup version of the moon landing. Following the release of the film's trailer online,
02:10some conspiracy theorists further questioned the integrity of the real moon landing.
02:15For both of you, what's your take on conspiracy theorists who have watched the trailer and said,
02:19oh, see the moon landing is fake. I'm so not a conspiracy theorist. I'm like very
02:24pragmatic and I'm like science. I believe in science. But you know, if that's like getting,
02:31if people are watching the trailer and that's what they're taking, then I guess we're doing our job.
02:35Yeah. You know, I don't know. I guess there, there's part of me that goes,
02:39I don't care if it was, or if it wasn't like, you know, it's so smart. If we faked it,
02:44I think that was probably one of the most like gangster moves that's ever been pulled on,
02:48on like the world because it was just a, you know, it was a race to the moon and we won
02:53theoretically. Um, but I, I, I think we went, I personally think we went, I think that the people
02:59that I talked to that actually were there that, you know, like it's not like they, they could do
03:06that. They, they spent so much money. There's so many people involved that we, we, people really
03:10saw the rockets go up. One of the reasons I was so excited to work on the film was NASA's
03:15involvement from the very beginning. And I think why NASA gave it their stamp of approval was they
03:20knew that even though we were taking a look at one of the OG conspiracy theories, that two things
03:27were happening. One, it's ultimately a movie about why the truth's important. And it's old.
03:33And it's also a movie that celebrates, you know, that celebrates what was accomplished.
03:38It was arguably the greatest accomplishment of humankind at that moment, and probably still,
03:45and certainly the largest televised event, you know, about it. And, uh, and, and I,
03:51my hope is that when people see the, it's not so much what they think prior to the movie,
03:55but when they see the movie that encourages them to go and that when they leave,
03:59they leave with a sense of like, wow, we did that.
04:01Fly Me to the Moon flies into theaters July 12th. For more on the film, head to THR.com.
04:07For The Hollywood Reporter News, I'm Tiffany Taylor.