At a time when the world is pouring its hopes into vaccines that are being rolled out, it's perhaps not hard to see the appeal of a film about one of the most famous pioneers in vaccine medicine. Jeremy Strong will play Dr. Jonas Salk in Splendid Solution.
Salk, for anyone who may not know, was the man who worked to create the polio vaccine even as the disease raged in the US. He had to combat wary patients, meddling politicians and general unease about the resulting treatment, but ended up a hero.
Gillian Weeks is on to adapt the script from Jeffrey Kluger's eponymous bestselling book. He has a history with real-life subjects, as a previous tome was turned into a little film called Apollo 13.
"We can’t think of a more timely story to tell — of one man’s journey to save the world from a devastating pandemic while overcoming misinformation from the media … and how he believed so much in the vaccine that he tested it on himself and his children to prove to the world that it was safe," say producers Shawn Levy and Dan Levine in a statement. They'll start looking for a director to bring this one to life.