Hilary Swank Goes Airborne As Amelia Earhart

Posted by Maggie Van Ostrand (maggie@filmschoolrejects.com) on February 8, 2008

The story of famed aviatrix, Amelia Earhart, portrayed in the past by Katharine Hepburn and Diane Keaton, will hit the silver screen again, this time played by Hilary Swank.

Biopic will be helmed by Mira Nair (Vanity Fair, The Namesake, Migration), with a pre-WGA-strike script written by Ron Bass (Snow Falling on Cedars, How Stella Got Her Groove Back).

This version, executive produced by Swank and Bass, is about Earhart in the formative stages of her career, says Variety. Backstory: Socialite Amy Guest wanted to fly nonstop across the Atlantic, but was talked out of it by publisher George Putnam who was then assigned to find a female pilot “to turn the flight into a media event.”

Earhart disappeared in 1937, as she attempted to become the first woman to fly around the world. With her navigator, Fred Noonan, her Lockheed Electra was last heard from about 100 miles from the tiny Pacific atoll, Howland Island on July 2, 1937. President Roosevelt authorized an immediate search; no trace was ever found.

Bass’s script is based on three books: East to the Dawn, by Susan Butler, The Sound of the Wings by Mary Lovell, and Amelia Earhart: The Mystery Solved, by Elgin Long.

Thanks to the postponement by Warners of Johnny Depp’s film, Shantaram, Nair became available to direct the Earhart film, Amelia.

Read more articles by Maggie Van Ostrand