director doesn’t think of himself as a director first and foremost. He’s a storyteller with a keen sense of how he can best serve a project, be it as a producer, writer or director. In the case of , the New York native had been talking about working with Scarlett Johansson for some time, and the opportunity to helm a hijinks-filled romantic comedy-drama that’s set in and around the Apollo 11 Moon landing was something he couldn’t resist.
His reasoning for signing on was also the polar opposite of why he chose to direct his previous comedy-drama, (2018), which chronicled the coming out story of teenager Simon Spier. (The critically acclaimed hit paved the way for Hulu’s spinoff series, .) “ was an opportunity to do a movie that wasn’t there when I was a kid, while was an opportunity to do the kind of movie that was there every weekend when I was a kid,” Berlanti tells .
Berlanti is referring to star-led original movies that offer wide audiences a little bit of everything, something the -penned does in spades, whether it’s romance, drama, comedy or clever action. Johansson’s character, Kelly Jones, combines the marketing savvy of ’s Don Draper with the con artistry of ’s Saul Goodman/Jimmy McGill and Kim Wexler. She is then recruited by Woody Harrelson’s shadowy G-man and tasked with rebranding NASA during the 1960s Space Race with the Soviet Union, all so that government funding can be upheld for Apollo 11’s mission to the Moon in 1969.
Eventually, .
