LOS ANGELES, CA.- “Fly Me to the Moon” is the kind of movie that isn’t supposed to succeed in theaters anymore, at least if you listen to franchise-obsessed studio executives.

The story is a period piece and completely original: In 1968, a government operative (Woody Harrelson) hires a marketing virtuoso (Scarlett Johansson) to convince the public — and Congress — that a troubled NASA can pull off its scheduled Apollo 11 moon landing. Stylish and devious, she clashes with the rigid launch director (Channing Tatum) and secretly — as a backup, to be used only in an emergency — arranges for a fake landing to be filmed on a soundstage. What’s the harm?

Hollywood marketers will tell you that ticket buyers eschew movies that mash together genres. And “Fly Me to the Moon” is part drama, part comedic caper, part romance, part fiction and part true story. Particularly in the summer, studios prefer to serve up mindless popcorn movies aimed at teenagers. “Fly Me to the Moon” is entertainment for thinking adults, the kind that Mike Nichols (“Working Girl”) and James L. Brooks (“Broadcast News”) made in the 1980s.

So the question must be asked: How on earth did “Fly Me to the Moon” manage to score a wide release in theaters at the height of blockbuster season? The film rolls into 3,300 theaters in the United States and Canada on Friday.

Shouldn’t it be going straight to streaming?

In many ways, the film’s unexpected journey to multiplexes reflects the degree to which Hollywood runs on the vagaries of chance. “Fly Me to the Moon” started out as a streaming movie — full stop. Apple TV+ paid an estimated $100 million for the project in March 2022, and the contract called for no theatrical release of any kind.

But then Greg Berlanti got involved.

It was June 2022, and Berlanti, a wunderkind television producer, had just turned 50. That milestone prompted a degree of uncomfortable self-reflection, compounded by his mother’s recent death. At the same time, the entertainment business was changing — the streaming-driven “peak TV” era was winding down — and Berlanti wasn’t entirely sure where to focus his professional attention.

He knew he had grown weary of shows based on comic books, having spent a decade working on hits such as “Riverdale,” “Arrow,” “The Flash” and “Supergirl.” He had also done television thrillers (“You”), family dramas (“Brothers & Sisters”) and torrents of teen angst (“Everwood,” “Dawson’s Creek”).

“I started getting these lifetime achievement honors, which were very nice, but they also made me reflective about what I wanted the back half of my career to be,” Berlanti said. “Am I done? I don’t want to be done.”

Then a movie script landed in his inbox. It was from Johansson, who suddenly needed a director for “Fly Me to the Moon,” which she was also producing. The initial director, Jason Bateman, had abruptly left the project (“creative differences”), and filming was scheduled to begin in Atlanta in four short months. Johansson had gotten to know Berlanti a few years earlier while kicking around a new take on “Little Shop of Horrors,” a classic musical. (She was going to star as Audrey, with Berlanti directing; the pandemic derailed the plan.)

“I needed someone who could deliver,” Johansson said. “Greg has such empathy. He’s so sensitive. He understands comedy. He’s a mensch. He’s efficient. He’s a little naughty, but a little prude. He was perfect for the material — and, as it turned out, the timing was perfect for him.”

Still, there was risk. Berlanti had previously directed only two studio films, and both were smaller in scale. “Love, Simon,” a celebrated 2018 rom-com centered on a gay teenager, cost $17 million to make and took in $66 million. “Life as We Know It,” a poorly reviewed 2010 comedy, cost $38 million and took in $106 million.

“I don’t direct that much,” Berlanti said. “It’s really not something I wake up thinking about — directing. But I found myself at a moment in my career when I wanted to do something that would use up all the parts of me and challenge me in every way, not just one or two ways.”

He continued, “I also missed movies that blended comedy and drama and were original and smart and vehicles for amazing actors. No one is doing them anymore. I knew why: box office prospects. But this movie was supposed to go straight to streaming. I thought, ‘Oh, this is great. There are much lower stakes.’”

He took the gig.

Berlanti delivered “Fly Me to the Moon” to executives at Apple in the spring of 2023. Next came a test screening in Colorado. “It scored very well with male and female, young and old, which came as a bit of a surprise,” Berlanti said. (Apple declined to comment for this article.)

Maybe the response was a fluke? Another audience test was conducted in California. “Same response, in fact even better,” Berlanti said. Still another was ordered up in Texas. “Everywhere we went, people responded by saying it was the kind of movie they missed in theaters — original with big movie stars,” he said.

The film’s producers, led by Johansson, pushed Apple to give “Fly Me to the Moon” a chance in theaters. Apple agreed. “It was both exciting and terrifying,” Berlanti said, breaking into nervous laughter.

Warner Bros. declined to bid for theatrical distribution rights. Universal was interested but ultimately bowed out, citing a full release schedule, as did Paramount, according to three people briefed on the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private negotiations. Disney was not a fit because it focuses almost exclusively on franchises.

In the end, it was one executive — Sony’s movie chair, Tom Rothman — who made the difference. “I wanted this movie for a simple reason: I enjoyed the hell out of it,” Rothman said. “It’s a real credit to Greg’s direction. It was a very high degree of difficulty, balancing the tone, and he did it beautifully.”

Rothman has been vocal in recent years about a need for traditional studios to embrace a mix of films, not just sequels and superheroes. Sony, for instance, released the romantic comedy “Anyone but You” in theaters in December. It arrived to $8 million in opening-weekend ticket sales and collected $220 million by the end of its run (after costing $25 million to make). No romantic comedy has been given a wide release in theaters since.

“It’s not about opening weekend for these movies,” Rothman said. “You have to nurture them and allow word-of-mouth to kick in.”

July offered a counterprogramming opportunity for “Fly Me to the Moon,” he added. Next weekend, Universal will release “Twisters,” an action remake reliant on computer-generated visual effects. Then comes the Marvel superhero sequel “Deadpool & Wolverine.”

“Older audiences don’t evaporate in the summer,” Rothman said. “It’s just that the business doesn’t give them much to watch.” Box office analysts expect “Fly Me to the Moon” to arrive to roughly $12 million in weekend ticket sales, which would result in a second-place opening behind “Despicable Me 4.”

Reviews for “Fly Me to the Moon” have been solid, if not exceptional. Will the people who say they want original movies come out to support “Fly Me to the Moon” over the longer haul?

Berlanti responded with an emphatic yes. “It’s a feel-good movie, which is an antidote for how a lot of people are feeling right now,” he said. (His career is fine either way; his production company has more than 20 projects in the works, including two new dramas headed to NBC in the fall and a live-action Scooby-Doo series for Netflix.)

Johansson was a bit more circumspect.

“I guess we’ll see,” she said. “You have to keep trying.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.