Auburn professor's Neil Armstrong biography to become a movie

Auburn history professor James Hansen's book might finally become a movie. In 2005, Simon and Schuster published his biography of a certain famous astronaut titled "First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong." From an interview with The Plainsman:

“There’s been two or three different attempts to get scripts written and get this project moving, and nothing has really come of it until now,” Hansen said. “The man who wrote the screenplay for 'Spotlight,' Josh Singer, has now written a script for the Armstrong movie and Universal plans to start shooting sometime next year.”

Hansen said Warner Bros. bought the movie rights in 2003 but nothing ever happened. When Clint Eastwood decided not to make the film, Universal Studios picked up the rights and put it into production.

Letting his baby out of his hands and into the often-unforgiving clutches of Hollywood has been stressful for the professor, he said, because he fears the movie treatment may not resemble his strictly factual approach.

The prospect of Hollywood injecting extra drama into the script almost seems a certainty given one review of Hansen's book.

Its readers cannot expect any more access to (Armstrong's) emotional interior than the first man to walk on the moon has ever allowed, but they will learn about everything he achieved in aerospace engineering. Deflecting aerospace historian Hansen's inquiries about personal crises, such as the death of an infant daughter or his divorce, Armstrong proves disarmingly more voluble about his involvement with airplanes and spacecraft.

Science and engineering details may make a fine biography by an aerospace historian, but Hollywood traffics in personal drama. Hopefully the scriptwriter of Oscar-winning "Spotlight" can do the story justice without going too far.

This story was originally published March 18, 2016 at 11:29 AM with the headline "Auburn professor's Neil Armstrong biography to become a movie."