During a manned mission to Mars, Astronaut Mark Watney is presumed dead after a fierce storm and left behind by his crew. But Watney has survived and finds himself stranded and alone on the hostile planet. With only meager supplies, he must draw upon his ingenuity, wit and spirit to subsist and find a way to signal to Earth that he is alive.
The first trailer for Ridley Scott’s upcoming sci-fi film The Martian, starring Matt Damon, has arrived, and it looks pretty good! I like the idea of doing Castaway in space, and the cast is great. I’m sure Scott will also bring his trademark art direction, which should make the movie compelling on a visual level, at least. But it’s not The Martian that I’m most interested in here. It’s Mars. The Red Planet has never had an easy time of it in the movies, and after a particularly bad rash of Mars movies in the 90’s, studios try to avoid it altogether. This creates a kind of self-fulfilling loop, where studios attempt to downplay any movies featuring Mars, leading to movies featuring Mars doing poorly. Also, they tend not to be very good. I think John Carter is probably the best Mars movie I’ve seen, and that says quite a bit. Note also that Mars is such a pox on movies that Disney insisted on changing the title from John Carter of Mars. All of that to say: will The Martian break the Mars curse? It looks like they’re going for some serious, Oscar-y drama here. I wonder, I wonder….
As a side note, it’s so cool to see Donald Glover in this.
The Martian comes out November 25, 2015.