Fresh off the heels of “American Sniper,” Clint Eastwood has plans for another biographical movie. Last night, Eastwood announced plans to bring the story of Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the hero of the 2009 Miracle on the Hudson, to the big screen.
Eastwood will not only direct the film, but serve as co-producer along with his longtime partner, Tim Moore, and two other veteran producers, Allyn Stewart and Frank Marshall. It will be released through Warner Bros., Eastwood’s longtime studio. There aren’t any plans as of yet for a release date, but shooting is due to begin sometime this fall. The script will be written by Todd Komarnicki, drawing heavily on Sully’s autobiography, “Highest Duty: My Search For What Really Matters,” which was released a few months after Sullenberger guided a crippled US Airways jet to a safe ditching in the Hudson River, saving the lives of 155 people.
Eastwood and Sullenberger are no strangers to each other. Eastwood bought the film rights to “Highest Duty” in 2010, but it’s only been now that it’s being turned into a film. Nonetheless, Sully is “very glad my story is in the hands” of Eastwood and his “dream team” of Moore, Stewart, Marshall, and Komarnacki. Warner Bros. is equally pleased. Creative development chief Todd Silverman gushed that Eastwood was “at the top of his game,” and now had a chance to “explore the life of another captivating true-life hero.” There’s no word yet on whom Eastwood plans to tap to portray Sully.
For those who don’t remember, Sullenberger had just taken off from LaGuardia Airport when his Airbus was paralyzed by Canada geese getting sucked into both engines. When it became apparent that neither time nor gravity would allow a return to LaGuardia or an emergency landing at Teterboro, Sullenberger decided the only course was a water landing. Drawing on his experience as a glider pilot, he ditched the plane in the Hudson six minutes into the flight. It holds a special place in the emotional reservoir of most people in my hometown of Charlotte, since Sully’s flight was originally bound for Charlotte en route to Seattle.
Although Sullenberger has been lauded for his cool demeanor while ditching the plane, that only came from the precision gleaned from seven years in the Air Force and 30 years with Pacific Southwest Airlines and US Air/US Airways. In truth, he described the time from the first bird strike to the ditching as “the worst sickening pit-of-your-stomach, falling-through-the-floor feeling I’ve ever felt in my life.”
I’m definitely making plans to see it when it comes out. All indications are that it will be well worth the price of admission.
