Succession and The Trial of the Chicago 7 star Jeremy Strong has been cast in the role of Dr. Jonas Salk in the upcoming film project Splendid Solution. Dr. Salk was the inventor of the polio vaccine.
The story for the film is based on Jeffrey Kluger’s New York Times bestseller, which tells the true story of Salk’s triumphant quest to create the vaccine as polio ravaged the U.S. “Salk’s battle against the virus, his perseverance and eventual triumph made him a cultural hero and icon for a generation.”
The project will be adapted by Gillian Weeks and produced by Shawn Levy (Free Guy, Stranger Things) and Dan Levine (Arrival). Levy and Levine shared a joint statement:
“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.”
Producer Aaron L. Gilbert added:
“This project is tailor-made for the time we’re living in. I am confident that this true story of hope and perseverance in an era of uncertainty will resonate with viewers across the world and remind them of what humankind has overcome. I am honored to have a part in bringing it to life.”
Here’s a more detailed description of the story from the book that the film will be based on:
With rivalries, reversals, and a race against time, the struggle to eradicate polio is one of the great tales of modern history. It begins with the birth of Jonas Salk, shortly before one of the worst polio epidemics in United States history. At the time, the disease was a terrifying enigma: striking from out of nowhere, it afflicted tens of thousands of children in this country each year and left them-literally overnight-paralyzed, and sometimes at death’s door.
Salk was in medical school just as a president crippled by the disease, Franklin D. Roosevelt, was taking office-and providing the impetus to the drive for studies on polio. By the early 1950s, Salk had already helped create an influenza vaccine, and was hot on the trail of the polio virus. He was nearly thwarted, though, by the politics of medicine and by a rival researcher eager to discredit his proposed solution. Meanwhile, in 1952, polio was spreading in record numbers, with 57,000 cases in the United States that summer alone.
In early 1954, Salk was weighing the possibility of trials of a not-yet-perfected vaccine against-as the summer approached-the prospect of thousands more children being struck down by the disease. The results of the history-making trials were announced at a press conference on April 12, 1955: “The vaccine works.” The room-and an entire nation-erupted in cheers for this singular medical achievement.
Strong is a great actor and this is going to be a solid project for him to take on.
Source: Deadline