Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, Dorothy Vaughan, Kathryn Peddrew, Sue Wilder, Eunice Smith and Barbara Holley – all names that have been largely forgotten by the American public. And yet these black, female mathematicians were crucial in the success of the Nasa space missions during the 1950s and 60s. Now their story is being placed back into the public eye in a new film.

Shakespeare in Love producer Donna Gigliotti, screenwriter Allison Schroeder and St Vincent director Ted Melfi are adapting Margot Lee Shetterly’s forthcoming book Hidden Figures for the big screen, according to Deadline. Actors rumoured for the lead roles include Oprah Winfrey, Taraji P Henson, Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer.

Hidden Figures, to be published next year, tells the true story of the unsung women who worked at Nasa during the intersection of two important turning points in US history: the space race and the civil-rights movement. The women, the top graduates from black colleges across the country, were hired due to a shortage of male number-crunchers, but their achievements have largely gone unheralded.

Even though they did the same work as their white counterparts, they were segregated to an outside office and endured significant hardships working under Virginia’s Jim Crow laws. Nevertheless, they went on to make important contributions to aerospace engineering and contributed to America’s victory over the USSR in the space race.

Production on Hidden Figures is set to start early next year.