Finding Nemo and Wall•e director Andrew Stanton is set to direct Chairman Spaceman for the Disney-owned Searchlight Pictures, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
The film is based on a 2017 New Yorker fiction story by Thomas Pierce about an infamous corporate raider who renounces his worldly wealth to become an inter-planetary missionary. Pierce himself is writing the screenplay for Stanton with Simon Kinberg (X-Men films) is producing with his production company Genre Films
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Andrew Stanton has had a long successful career in animation with Pixar; he directed the studios’ second feature A Bugs Life and five years later directed the critical and financial hit Finding Nemo, he then directed the long-in-development sci-fi adventure Wall•e, before returning under the sea for the billion-dollar Finding Nemo sequel Finding Dory.

Chairman Spaceman isn’t Stanton’s first live-action gig, after Wall•e, Disney tapped him to direct John Carter, a film that the studio had been developing for many years. Sadly, John Carter was a massive financial miss for Disney but has since received cult status with the introduction to streamers like Netflix and Disney+. Stanton has also directed some episodes of hit series including Stranger Things, Better Call Saul, and Legion.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter