Ryan Gosling to play Neil Armstrong in 'La La Land' director's moon landing biopic

Brace for a La La landing.

Ryan Gosling is set to play astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, in director Damien Chazelle's followup to La La Land, Mashable has confirmed.

Titled First Man, the biopic will adapt author James Hansen's biography "First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong." Universal Pictures has not yet set a release date for the film that will chronicle NASA's mission to land a man on the moon.

The studio describes First Man as "a visceral, first-person account" that focuses on the United States' relentless pursuit of a crewed lunar landing. Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey of Temple Hill Entertainment (the Twilight series) will produce, with Universal’s VP of production Sara Scott overseeing for the studio.

Armstrong was a Navy bomber and hotshot test pilot before joining NASA, becoming its first civilian pilot in space during the orbital Gemini 8 mission.

Three years later, during the July 1969 Apollo 11 mission to the moon, Armstrong took manual control of the landing module after they overshot the preferred area by several miles. Safely down, Armstrong asked to move up the timetable for his historic walk, and put a boot on the lunar surface in late afternoon, Houston time, on July 21, saying, "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind."

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

You can bet those words will be in the script, which is being written by Academy Award-winning screenwriter Josh Singer (Spotlight).

Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin spent more than two hours outside the spacecraft on the moon's surface, with Michael Collins staying in orbit in the command module.

After retiring from the space program, Armstrong became an aeronautics engineering teacher, businessman and polar explorer — though Universal has said First Man will focus on the years 1961-1969. Armstrong died in 2012 of complications from heart bypass surgery.