Elon Musk’s SpaceX Gets an HBO Series, From Channing Tatum and Star Trek Beyond Writer: Report

The story of Elon Musk's SpaceX is coming to TV. HBO is reportedly developing a six-episode limited series based on Ashlee Vance's 2015 best-selling Musk biography “Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future.” It will tell the story of a team of SpaceX engineers who were picked by Musk to build and launch a rocket into orbit (Falcon 1), and subsequently delivered the first-ever reusable rocket (Falcon 9) that could land vertically. Channing Tatum is among the executive producers on the HBO SpaceX series, alongside Doug Jung (Star Trek Beyond) as writer and executive producer.

Variety brings word of HBO working on a SpaceX miniseries, and notes that Musk is not involved “at this time.” Vance's book covers Musk's life from childhood to his SpaceX days, through his years at city guide Zip2, payments processor PayPal, and electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla. However, the HBO series will only focus on SpaceX that has a lot of firsts to its name for a privately-funded space company, including the first manned Falcon 9 mission back in May.

Musk founded SpaceX in 2002, a year before he started Tesla, and now commands a personal net worth of nearly $100 billion (about Rs. 7,34,000 crores).

In addition to Star Trek Beyond, Jung has previously worked on the Netflix psychological crime thriller series Mindhunter, the 2018 sci-fi horror film The Cloverfield Paradox, and the action series Banshee, available on Disney+ Hotstar in India. Jung was also the creator on the short-lived TNT action crime drama series Dark Blue.

Tatum's Free Association banner will produce the HBO SpaceX series, with Free Association's Reid Carolin and Peter Kiernan also serving as executive producers, alongside former HBO Films president Len Amato and Vance. Free Association's Michael Parets will oversee the HBO SpaceX series.

Vance's book was named among the best books of 2015 by several American publications, including Audible, Fast Company, NPR, and The Wall Street Journal. It spent several months on The New York Times best-seller list.