She might not be coming back to the galaxy far, far away any time soon, but Daisy Ridley is returning to Disney Plus in Young Woman and the Sea, Pirates of the Caribbean; Dead Men Tell No Tales director Joachim Rønning’s movie about long-distance swimmer Trudy Ederle who was the first woman to swim the English Channel.
Deadline broke the news on Wednesday, but trust me when I say that Ridley has been attached to this project for years… it just never got off the ground before now. That’s because it was trapped at Paramount, which finally put it into turnaround, allowing producer Jerry Bruckheimer to bring it to Disney. The studio now hopes to start production before next summer, according to Deadline’s report.
Jeff Nathanson adapted the book by Glenn Stout, which chronicled the daring journey of the first woman to ever make the 21-mile swim across the English Channel way back in 1926.
Ederle was a competitive swimmer from Manhattan who won a gold medal in the 1924 Olympics before deciding to swim across the English Channel, financing her quest by selling her story to two different newspapers. Only five men had finished the perilous journey before Ederle, who prepared by swimming 22 miles from Battery Park in New York to Sandy Hook, New Jersey. She was honored with a parade upon her return to New York, though this Disney+ movie will be the first time her empowering story has been told.
Daisy will soon be seen in the long-delayed Chaos Walking, and while she’s unlikely to be coming back to Star Wars any time soon, stay tuned to todays Disney Investor Day just in case.
Chaos Walking: Book 1: The Knife Of Never Letting Go @ ForbiddenPlanet.com
