Is 'Fly Me To The Moon' Based On A True Story?

Is it just me or does it feel like movies are back this summer? If Glen Powell has taught us anything, it’s that 2024 is the year of the romcom. Channing Tatum and Scarlett Johannson have come out of their real-life personal love bubbles to star in the 2024 space-race-centric romantic comedy, Fly Me To The Moon. The movie follows Channing as NASA director Cole Davis who’s in charge of the first-ever US rocket launch to the moon. When the government decides NASA needs a backup plan in case goes wrong with the real Apollo 11, marketing genius Kelly Jones (ScarJo) is hired to shoot a fake moon landing as a solid plan B. The summer Blockbuster hopeful is directed by Greg Berlanti, the creator behind everyone’s favorite serial killer Joe Goldberg, of You. But unlike Joe’s fictional terrorism of women from New York to Los Angeles, Fly Me To The Moon covers real events from US history… or does it? Is Fly Me To The Moon actually based on a true story? Here’s the not so black and white answer.

Is Fly Me To The Moon based on a true story?

Kind of! Of course, the moon landing was a real-life historical event that happened in 1969 when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took a televised ride on a rocket to the move. NASA did organize a huge PR campaign designed by its Public Relations department leading up to the launch to get the American public to believe in the mission. Broadcasting the event live was a big swing that the government and NASA were worried about going wrong. They had heavy-handed oversight on all the promotional materials for the launch and shared binders full of PR talking points for journalists to report on. At the time NASA was only a few years old and US citizens didn’t have a lot of trust in the country between the tension from the Cold War and the civil rights movement (US history is soooo fun, right?) But, as far as we know, NASA filming a fake moon landing is still nothing more than rumors that have been circulating pop culture since the event happened.

Was Cole Davis a real NASA director?

Channing Tatum’s character Cole Davis was not a real NASA employee. The leader of the organization at the time was actually named Eugene Krantz, who likely served as the loose inspiration for the head nerd in charge.