Jeremy Strong, star of the critically acclaimed and award-winning drama “Succession,” is set to star in and executive produce a series for Amazon Studios revolving around Boeing’s contentious 737 Max airplanes. Coming off the heels of 2021 which saw Strong star in the third season of HBO’s darkly comedic family portrait, the actor is set to create this new series alongside Chris Terrio, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of “Argo,” and Plan B, the studio responsible for Adam McKay’s “Vice” and James Gray’s “Ad Astra,” amongst other titles.
According to Deadline, the show is “an examination of the events surrounding the Boeing 737 Max” and will “reflect various perspectives.” Strong is set to play a character who will be a composite of several engineers involved with Boeing. In a six-month period between October 2018 and March 2019, the Boeing 737 Max was involved in two fatal crashes that resulted in the deaths of 338 passengers. After investigations were launched into the crashes, which both occurred shortly after takeoff, the Boeing 737 Max was grounded across the globe. Having only flown about 500,000 flights at the time of these accidents, the fatal-accident rate of the 737 Max was four per million, eclipsing the 0.2 per million fatal-accident rate of its predecessor, the 737. In November 2020, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), lifted the manufacturing ban on the 737 Max, with Boeing hoping to up production of the model to 47 a month by the end of 2023.
Much of this same territory was recently covered in the Netflix documentary “Downfall: The Case Against Boeing,” which was a searing investigation into how the company’s crumbling internal culture resulted in two historic plane crashes, 346 fatalities, and a shocking cover-up. That’ll be a nice primer for anyone interested in the subject before the dramatized version arrives (watch that trailer below).
Strong’s presence is sure to pique the interest of viewers. Besides his turn as the moody and myopic Kendall Roy on “Succession,” Strong has been building an impressive resume over the last several years, having worked with the likes of the aforementioned Adam McKay on “The Big Short” and with Aaron Sorkin on “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” in which the actor portrayed notorious subversive and ’60s cult figure Jerry Rubin. Terrio’s writing credits also include “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” and Zack Snyder’s “Justice League.”
The forthcoming series from Strong and Terrio will follow several other successful TV series from Plan B, such as Barry Jenkins‘ “The Underground Railroad.”