Aaron Eckhart joins Captain Sully alongside Tom Hanks

Aaron Eckhart has been roped in with Tom Hanks in Warner Bros.’ Captain Sully Sullenberger biopic, which will be directed by Clint Eastwood.

Sullenberger was the man hailed as a hero when he safely landed a bird-struck, malfunctioning plane full of passengers on New York’s Hudson River back in 2009, becoming a symbol for old school guts and professionalism in the face of adversity.

Eckhart will play Jeff Skiles, who was the first officer and co-pilot on the Airbus A320.

The film is in pre-production and is set for release some time in 2016. He helped Sully safely land the US Airways plane.

Todd Komarnicki (Perfect Stranger) is writing the script, based on the 2010 autobiographical book by Sullenberger and Jeffrey Zaslow, “Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters”. The event became widely known as The Miracle on Hudson.

The report states that Hanks will be taking on the lead role while Eastwood will be working behind the camera and was also included in the short list of actors that will be taking on the lead role.

Eckhart has most recently appeared in the action films, Olympus Has Fallen and I, Frankenstein, with his reprisal of his presidential character in 2016’s London Has Fallen on the horizon. At this time, there doesn’t seem to be an announced production schedule for the Captain “Sully” Sullenberger movie, though it’s pretty easy to imagine that this one is to be starting to shoot soon.