The official trailer of James Grey’s ‘Ad Astra’ was finally released today. During the Disney-Fox merger, the film was constantly in limbo, with the VFX being done, there was hope that the film could make it to Cannes, of which Grey is a darling, but it just turned out they didn’t have enough time.
Originally the film was slated for a January 2019 release, but then got pushed back to May, where it remained there until the week before, with no trailer or marketing, and finally the film was pushed back to September 20th, a date I predicted they would use as there would be no other competition besides ‘It: Chapter 2’ entering its third weekend.
And today, finally, the trailer dropped. The film stars Brad Pitt as an astronaut, when a phenomenon called ‘The Surge’ hits Earth, plunging it into chaos. It is here that McBridge (Pitt) is notified that his father, whose space mission went cold sixteen years in, could be behind it.
The plot is good enough, and the trailer offers glimpses of the VFX, which is one of the frontrunners in the Oscar race for the category. Pitt looks as timeless as ever, with Grey hoping he can finally break his bout of bad box office performances with his films.
The film has a cool $50M budget, however from the trailer Grey and Fox (now Disney) were able to make it look triple that. This has the appearance of a huge Hollywood blockbuster, when in fact it has undertones of films such as ‘Interstellar, ‘Blade Runner 2049’ and dare I say ‘2001: A Space Odyssey? – With the wonderful colour schemes and futuristic production designs.
Credit to Disney/Fox, they’ve managed to make this trailer appeal to every type of cinephile out there: You have the action lover, where in the trailer there is a scene which appears to be a moon buggy chase. Then you have the indie lover, who can see hints of a sci-fi noir film, and then you have Brad Pitt lovers.
Despite the trailer focusing on Pitt, the film has a strong supporting cast as well, including Tommy Lee Jones playing his estranged father, Donald Sutherland, his new father figure, Ruth Negga and Jamie Kennedy.
The film is being touted for the film to beat in below-the-line Oscar categories if the film gets decent reviews, including Best Film Editing, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Visual Effects, not to mention what surely will be a minimalistic and futuristic score from Max Richter that could rival Hans Zimmer’s ‘Interstellar’.
And we must not forget the Viking himself Hoyte Van Hoytema – the regular director of photography for Christopher Nolan’s films. After doing ‘Interstellar’, can he transfer the similar vibes he did for the 2014 film which earned him an Oscar nomination to ‘Ad Astra’? Probably so.
That’s a possibility of six Oscar nominations, and those nominations could amount to a Best Picture nod as well if the film is any decent.
But that’s for another article, however it is interesting that two Fox-turned Disney films (‘Ad Astra’ and ‘Le Mans 66’) trailers are released within days of each other. I suspect this could be a make-or-break moment in Disney’s future as if these films bomb, they could stop these sorts of films made by studios like Fox and just make constant remakes. Go see these films and vote with your wallet! Otherwise it will just be a Disney blockbuster monopoly.
If you want more – I recommend reading this article here by Scott Mendelson of Forbes, going into more detail then I did. Until then, enjoy the trailer below.
UKFILMS 