'The Right Stuff' TV Series Lands At Disney+ This Fall

The Right Stuff is making a landing at Disney+ this fall. National Geographic's scripted drama series, based on Tom Wolfe's bestselling nonfiction account of the early days of NASA, has found a home at Disney+, which will debut the eight-episode TV series this fall.

Disney+ announced that National Geographic's The Right Stuff TV series will premiere on the streaming service this fall. Produced for National Geographic by Appian Way and Warner Horizon Scripted Television, The Right Stuff adapts Tom Wolfe's nonfiction novel about the early days of NASA, which was first turned into an acclaimed 1983 feature film directed by Philip Kaufman. This eight-episode scripted series is billed as a "clear-eyed look at what would become America's first 'reality show,'" that will dive further into the lives of the "ambitious astronauts and their families become instant celebrities in a competition that could kill them or make them immortal," according to the Disney+ press release.

The Right Stuff stars Patrick J. Adams (Suits), Jake McDorman (What We Do in the Shadows), Colin O'Donoghue (Once Upon a Time), Aaron Staton (Mad Men), James Lafferty (The Haunting of Hill House), Micah Stock (Brittany Runs a Marathon), and Michael Trotter (Underground) as the team of pilots who would become known as the legendary Mercury Seven.

The rest of the ensemble cast includes Danny Strong (Billions), Eric Ladin (American Sniper), Patrick Fischler (Twin Peaks), Nora Zehetner (Brick),  Josh Cooke (Grace and Frankie) Eloise Mumford (Fifty Shades of Grey franchise), and Shannon Lucio (True Blood).

Here is the synopsis for the series:

At the height of the Cold War in 1959, the Soviet Union dominates the space race. To combat a national sentiment of fear and decline, the U.S. government conceives of NASA's Project Mercury, igniting a space race with the Soviets and making instant celebrities of a handful of the military's most accomplished test pilots. These individuals, who come to be known as the Mercury Seven, are forged into heroes long before they have achieved a single heroic act. The nation's best engineers estimate they need several decades to make it into outer space. They are given two years.

The astronauts' strengths are equaled only by their flaws. As the men succumb to the temptations that surround them, Project Mercury threatens to come apart. At the heart of the historic drama populated by deeply human characters are two men who become icons — Glenn and Shepard — as they jockey to be the first man in space. The entire program is nearly brought to its knees by their intense rivalry.

The series also follows NASA's engineers, who work against the clock as pressures mount from Washington and a transfixed public. And we witness the underbelly of a myth-making propaganda machine headed by NASA's PR department and aided by the writers and editors at LIFE Magazine.

The series, which is executive produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, Will Staples, Howard Korder, and Jennifer Davisson alongside showrunner Mark Lafferty (Castle Rock) seems like a surprisingly adult-targeted new title for Disney+, which has stuck with family-oriented content to an almost severe degree, passing on several of its more mature series to Hulu. That The Right Stuff, a period drama that appeals to adult audiences, is landing at Disney+ is odd, but it is unlikely to touch on sexual themes like Love, Victor and High Fidelity.

Disney+ did not specify a premiere date for The Right Stuff.