Is 'Fly Me to the Moon' based on a true story? (2024)

Fly Me to the Moon takes the conspiracy theory that the moon landing was a hoax and runs with it. But no, it's not based on a true story. At least, not totally.

It is based on real historical events, namely the Apollo program and America's race against the Soviet Union, commonly known as the Space Race, to put a man on the moon. It's also true that NASA was struggling with funding and its public image in the run-up to the launch of Apollo 11 and the moon landing, which led them to hire a PR expert to help make their mission one shared by the vast majority of Americans.

Many of the gambits in the film, including partnerships with companies such as Omega, Tang, and Fruit of the Loom are true to history — as is the media blitz of astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins, who became celebrities in their own right.

But the story at its center — of the romance between con artist-turned-PR-guru Kelly Jones (Scarlett Johansson) and launch director Cole Davis (Channing Tatum) — is entirely the creation of the filmmakers, including screenwriter Rose Gilroy and director Greg Berlanti. So, too, is its supposition that the U.S. government hired a PR operative to stage and film a fake version of the moon landing in the event that the Apollo 11 mission failed.

"We had some real help from NASA ," explains Berlanti of the crossover between fact and fiction in the historical narrative. "We wanted to get all the technical, NASA elements [right] so that if we're going to do a movie about faking a real thing, the real stuff felt very real. [We have] the usual historical fiction liberties, and then also, general narrative liberties you take, even with some of the stuff that actually did occur, augmenting it slightly if it helped our story. For instance, the first camera and telecast was on Apollo 8, but we made it Apollo 11 because that would be more significant for our narrative. There were things like that that we changed, but true facts of history we did not change for the most part."

Of course, the biggest narrative liberty is the existence of Project Artemis, a.k.a. the classified fake moon landing. Since Neil Armstrong made his one small step for man, conspiracy theories have raged that the miracle of science broadcast around the country was a complete fake. One of the more popular theories remains that Stanley Kubrick filmed the moon landing, largely because of his recent success with 2001: A Space Odyssey (a subset of folks are convinced that The Shining is the director's veiled confession of his involvement in the hoax). The film pays homage to this with several mentions of hiring Kubrick for the job.

Despite the fact that the conspiracy would have involved nearly 400,000 people over the course of the 10 years of the Apollo project, there remains about five to 10 percent of the population who insist the moon landing was a hoax. The film also nods to the sheer volume of people involved in the Apollo program, with agent Moe Berkus (Woody Harrelson) instituting strict security measures and a small crew to ensure most of NASA doesn't find out about the scheme.

But Berlanti hopes that the film's true message will be its desire for both its heroes and audiences to root for the truth. "One thing I wasn't as aware of until I started to work on it was how long this has been a conspiracy theory," Berlanti muses. "Apparently there were people right after launch that were already saying that. Obviously, distrust of government since then and the advent of social media has perpetuated more of all of this. But that was also the reason to take one of the OG conspiracy theories and actually tell a narrative story about it."

"The purpose of our story is really about why the truth is important," he continues. "When I was reading the script initially, before I even had the job, I had the feeling at the end of like, 'Oh gosh, I want the truth to be true, and I want the real thing to have happened.' And I thought, that would be a great feeling if I could get the audience to feel that collectively."

Part of that is celebrating the parts of the Apollo program that were undeniably real. "One of the NASA folks made the point that two thirds of the money and time was actually spent just getting the rocket off the planet," says Berlanti. "Nobody doubts that because everybody saw it with their own two eyes, and it's just as much of a grand scientific achievement."

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Berlanti isn't too worried, though, that the conspiracy theorists will take the film's existence as a validation of their beliefs. "As a storyteller, I take my job really responsibly and I want to entertain, but you can't be responsible for every segment of the audience," he reflects. "Hopefully, when people watch this film, what they get from it in the end is more of a celebration of what was accomplished."

Fly Me to the Moon is now in theaters.