Sony Pictures recently released the trailer for the Apple Original film Fly Me to the Moon, starring Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum.

Photos of the comedy-drama were also released exclusively by People featuring the two actors, who are working together for the first time.

Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum as first-time co-stars

The story follows two people working at NASA during the agency's 1969 moon landing. Johansson plays Kelly Jones who works at the marketing team whose mission to help rehabilitate NASA's image to the public. Tatum plays Cole Davis, NASA launch director.

The film's synopsis reads, “When the President deems the mission too important to fail. Jones is directed to stage a fake moon landing as backup and the countdown truly begins.”

Johansson said that she didn't know Tatum before they starred in the movie together, even though they have “many friends in common.”

“Falling in love with him onscreen was pretty easy. He's such a likable person. Kelly and Cole are such opposites. It was fun to play that dynamic with Channing,” she explained.

Johansson also serves as one of the film's producers and describes Kelly as a “very modern woman living in a time where women were often underestimated.”

“She uses that to her advantage and is always a few steps ahead,” the actress added.

Joining Channing and Johansson in the film are Nick Dillenburg, Anna Garcia, Jim Rash, Noah Robbins, Colin Woodell, Christan Zuber, Donald Elise Watkins, Ray Romano and Woody Harrelson.

The movie was directed by Greg Berlanti with a script from Rose Gilroy and the story by Bill Kirstein and Keenan Flynn.

Hollywood and the Moon Landing Conspiracy

Berlanti said that the inspiration for the story was to answer the question on “whether or not the American government could have possibly faked the Apollo 11 moon landing.”

Like Berlanti said, “the moon landing is still the most-watched live-TV event” in history, and due to that it's also become the subject of the many conspiracy theories that have migrated from word of mouth to the vast world of the internet.

The filmmaker said that recreating the moon landing, as well as the methods used in order to possibly fake it at the time, was the “most challenging” that it needed a baseball field-sized set.

It also needed “months of construction and design work with all of our department heads,” as well was coordinating with stunt actors, lighting work and a movement coach to recreate how the ‘fake astronauts' walked the way Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong did on the moon.

Johansson said that Fly Me to the Moon will appeal to the audience due to its originality.

“It's not derivative of anything else, it doesn't follow a formula,” she added. The actress believes that moviegoers will appreciate that the film offers a big idea fleshed out in a “funny and poignant” story.

The film will have a cinematic release on July 12 and will later be streamed on Apple TV+.

One of the earliest and most influential books that support the idea of the moon landing being faked was published in 1976 We Never Went to the Moon: America's Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle by Bill Kaysing. The former US Navy officer self-published the book.

Another popular theory that may have inspired this film is one from the Flat Earth Society in the 1980. The organization accused Hollywood of faking the moon landing with Walt Disney sponsoring it, based on a script from noted sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke and directed by Stanley Kubrick.

Johansson is rumored to have been cast in the upcoming Jurassic 4 movie. She most recently parodied Sen. Katie Britt who delivered the Republican response to Pres. Joe Biden's state of the union address.