The film about lauded pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger appears to be taking off rapidly. It already has Tom Hanks aboard to star as the man himself, with Clint Eastwood in the director’s jump seat. Now Aaron Eckhart will join Hanks in the cockpit{
Sullenberger was the man hailed as a hero when he safely landed a bird-struck, malfunctioning plane full of passengers on New York’s Hudson River back in 2009, becoming a symbol for old school guts and professionalism in the face of adversity. His moment of fame led to a memoir, called Highest Duty: My Search For What Really Matters, and saw both the book and his life rights bought by producer Frank Marshall, with Sully on board as a producer. Todd Komarnicki wrote the script for the film, which is still taxiing on the development runway.
Eckhart will play Jeff Skiles, first officer and co-pilot of the Airbus A320, who was at the controls when the birds hit the engines. No slouch in the heroics department himself, he helped Sully land the plane. The actor will be back as President Benjamin Asher in London Has Fallen, which is now set to arrive on January 22 next year. He’s also part of the cast for horror thriller Incarnate (which has seemingly fallen into release limbo, with no plans outside of Belgium and The Netherlands) and boxing biopic Bleed For This, which has yet to announce a date.