They mystery of Amelia Earhart continues to fascinate; what happened to the first woman to try to circumnavigate the globe in an airplane? She disappeared in July of 1937 over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to find the next landing strip on her journey. Insert a women drivers joke here if you’re really boring. Of course Earhart did more than just disappear; she was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic solo, and received the Distinguished Flying Cross for it. She was an outspoken women’s rights advocate and author, and she made huge breakthroughs for women in aviation.
Phil Noyce was set to direct a biopic about Earhart, with Hilary Swank as the star, but he had to drop out around Christmas – he said that while he had done tons of scouting and storyboards it didn’t look like the film was moving ahead, so he had to go to greener pastures (a Mary Queen of Scots movie starring ScarJo, apparently). But now Moviehole, who broke that original news, is reporting that maybe the Earhart movie isn’t that dead and a new director has come aboard: Mira Nair, who recently directed The Namesake. Nair has the Johnny Depp-starring Shantaram on her potential future slate, but that one took a smack from the strike and is currently way up in the air. If the Earhart movie has a script ready, she could move right in and get shooting soon.