Capt. Sully's Story Takes Flight to the Big Screen
Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger
Capt. Sully has landed — in Hollywood.
Flashlight Films has picked up the movie rights to Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger's memoir, which recounts the pilot's heroic landing of U.S. Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River, Variety reports.
Sullenberger wrote Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters with Jeffrey Zaslow. The memoir was released last October, nine months after the famed landing.
Watch videos of Capt. Sully
Flashlight's Allyn Stewart will produce the film, along with executive producers Kipp Nelson of Flashlight and Kathleen Kennedy of Kennedy/Marshall Co. The film, which does not yet have a studio attached or a script, could be a theatrical release or a TV movie.
Sullenberger and his wife, Lorrie, will serve as consultants.
Sullenberger was reluctant to sell the film rights until he met Harrison Ford, a licensed pilot, who advised him to go with Kennedy/Marshall Co., which produced Indiana Jones.
A pilot for more than four decades, Sullenberger became a household name when he landed Flight 1549 in the Hudson on Jan. 15, 2009, after birds flew into the engines. All 155 passengers on board survived.