The first trailer has been released for James Gray’s Ad Astra, and it looks like we’re in for an ambitious space-set epic on par with Interstellar.
The trailer sees Brad Pitt as astronaut Roy McBride, who goes on a mission to literally save mankind — but there’s more to it than that. His father (Tommy Lee Jones), also an astronaut, went on his own mission to space 16 years ago and disappeared. McBride had long believed that his father died on the mission, but it turns out that he was actually conducting a top-secret experiment with a mysterious new substance that is now threatening the entire solar system. So it’s up to McBride to travel to the outer reaches of our solar system in order to locate his dad and prevent this unstable material from spreading and destroying all life as we know it.
The film marks the first foray into science-fiction for writer/director Gray, who is best known for his critically-acclaimed, Earth-based dramatic work on films such as We Own the Night and The Immigrant (Gray boasts an impressive four Cannes Palm d’Or nominations). Gray co-wrote the script with Ethan Gross, a television writer who knows a thing or two about sci-fi thanks to his prior work on Fox’s Fringe, so we can expect Gross’s voice to feature prominently in the final product. As for the cast, Pitt and Jones will be joined by Donald Sutherland, Ruth Negga, and Liv Tyler, who once again plays the love interest to a world-saving astronaut, just as she did over 20 years ago in Armageddon.
Ad Astra will land in theaters here on Earth on September 20.
