BBC & Science Channel Team Up for Factual Drama

LONDON: The BBC and Science Channel are co-producing a new biographical drama that stars William Hurt as the acclaimed scientist Richard Feynman in a story that centers on the NASA Challenger disaster.

Hurt (History of Violence, Into the Wild, Too Big to Fail) portrays the U.S. physicist who was instrumental in uncovering the truth behind the space-shuttle disaster in 1986. Other cast confirmed include Bruce Greenwood (Star Trek, Super 8, I, Robot), who plays fellow Commissioner U.S. Air Force General Donald Kutyna in the second lead role. He is joined by Brian Dennehy (First Blood, Bunker Hill, Twelfth Night) and Joanne Whalley (The Singing Detective, The Virgin Queen, The Borgias). Filming begins this month and the 90-minute drama—a BBC Scotland Science and Science Channel co-production—is due to broadcast on BBC Two in 2013.

Kim Shillinglaw, BBC’s commissioning editor for science and natural history, said: “This is the gripping story of a brilliant physicist’s battle for scientific truth in the dark corridors of big government. With an impressive cast, including award-winning actor William Hurt, it promises to be a powerful factual drama for BBC Two and part of our mission to make science programs ever more surprising and ambitious.”

“The Challenger disaster represents an indelible moment in American history—anyone who is old enough to recall it remembers exactly where they were then this terrible tragedy occurred,” added Debbie Myers, the general manager and executive VP of Science Channel. “Science Channel is honored to work with the incomparable William Hurt to tell the story of Richard Feynman, a true-life hero and one of most controversial scientific minds of our time.”