Andrew Garfield and Daisy Edgar-Jones are bringing a true romance to life.
The Oscar nominee and “Where the Crawdads Sing” actress are set to lead Academy Award winner Sebastián Lelio’s “Voyagers” based on the real-life relationship between astronomer Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, who produces the feature. FilmNation Entertainment is set to launch global sales at 2023 Cannes. Ben Browning produces for FilmNation Entertainment, along with Lynda Obst.
“Voyagers” takes place in 1977 as NASA prepares to launch humanity’s first interstellar probes, a team led by Sagan set out to create a message to accompany them — The Golden Record. But what starts out as a race-against-the-clock mission becomes an epic, unexpected love story between Carl and his collaborator Ann Druyan. FilmNation Entertianment paired Druyan with screenwriters Lelio and Jessica Goldberg who wrote the original screenplay based on interviews with Druyan and many others who worked on the Golden Record project, per a press release.
“As a nine-year-old boy growing up during Chile’s dictatorship, Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan’s TV series ‘Cosmos’ had a profound impact on me, igniting my fascination with life’s biggest questions and mysteries,” writer-director Lelio said. “It is a dream to make a movie about the Golden Record and, within it, the inspiring love story between Carl and Ann. I’m thrilled that Andrew Garfield and Daisy Edgar-Jones will be at the center of this epic romance set against the infinite backdrop of space and time.”
Emmy and Peabody-winning producer Druyan, whose story is at the center of the film, added, “Imagine falling madly, truly in love with one of the greatest humans who ever lived, while creating a complex message about what it is to be alive, a golden record affixed to the first interstellar spacecraft launched by our species, bound to sail the Milky Way galaxy long after Earth ceases to exist. It takes a movie to bring that mythic experience, that cosmic love story to vivid life. After years of searching, I feel that we have found exactly the right colleagues and artists to capture the magic of it.”
Producer Obst shared, “I’m thrilled that this cosmic yet intimate love story that I had the honor to witness is being brought to life by such an exquisite team of Sebastián Lelio, Jessica Goldberg, Andrew Garfield, and Daisy Edgar-Jones.”
Lelio co-wrote and directed “The Wonder” starring Florence Pugh, which was nominated for Outstanding British Film of the Year at last year’s BAFTA. “Voyagers” lead star Garfield is currently in production on another Pugh project with John Crowley’s “We Live in Time.” Garfield and Edgar-Jones recently collaborated on FX true crime series “Under the Banner of Heaven” for which Garfield was nominated for an Emmy. Edgar-Jones received her second Golden Globe nomination for the chilling limited series.
