Brad Pitt blasts into space in the first Ad Astra… | Little White Lies

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Brad Pitt blasts into space in the first Ad Astra trailer

05 Jun 2019

Words by Adam Woodward

Man in white spacesuit-like outfit standing at podium in wooden room.
Man in white spacesuit-like outfit standing at podium in wooden room.
James Gray’s upcom­ing sci-fi cen­tres on an extrater­res­tri­al mys­tery that threat­ens the sur­vival of our planet.

It’s been a long time com­ing, but today we final­ly have a first prop­er glimpse of James Gray’s hot­ly-antic­i­pat­ed sci-fi thriller. Orig­i­nal­ly slat­ed for release this sum­mer, Ad Astra was rumoured to debut at the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val but has now been delayed until Sep­tem­ber – only height­en­ing the sense of mys­tique and intrigue sur­round­ing the film.

Brad Pitt stars as astro­naut Roy McBride, who embarks on a mis­sion on the edge of space only to crash back down to earth when a strange event dubbed The Surge’ trig­gers pow­er out­ages and plane crash­es around the plan­et. The first offi­cial trail­er gives away more of the plot, but we won’t spoil any­thing here – suf­fice to say it looks like a bold change of direc­tion from direc­tor Gray, whose pre­vi­ous explo­ration into the nature of human exis­tence, The Lost City of Z, failed to have the desired impact.

Liv Tyler, Tom­my Lee Jones, Ruth Neg­ga and Don­ald Suther­land co-star in Ad Astra along­side Pitt, who is shap­ing up to have some­thing of a ban­ner year – even by his lofty stan­dards – fol­low­ing his star turn in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… in Hol­ly­wood.

Ad Astra is released on 18 September.

Ethereal silhouette of a person suspended in dark, murky water.

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