Ad Astra (film)

Ad Astra is a 2019 science fiction film, directed by James Gray and written by Gray and Ethan Gross. Starring Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Ruth Negga, Liv Tyler, and Donald Sutherland, it follows an astronaut who ventures into space in search of his lost father, whose obsessive quest to discover intelligent alien life at all costs threatens the Solar System and all life on Earth.

The project was announced in early 2016, with Gray stating he wanted to feature "the most realistic depiction of space travel that's been put in a movie". Pitt signed on to star in August 2016 and the rest of the cast, save Tyler, joined the next year. Filming began around Los Angeles that August, lasting through October. Tyler was added to the cast in 2018 after unsatisfactory test screenings mandated a love interest for Pitt's character.

Ad Astra premiered at the Venice Film Festival on August 29, 2019, and was theatrically released in the United States on September 20, by 20th Century Fox. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, with particular praise for Pitt's performance. It underperformed at the box office, grossing $135.2 million against an $80–100 million budget. At the 92nd Academy Awards, it was nominated for Best Sound Mixing.

Plot

In the early 22nd century, mysterious cosmic ray-bursts emanating from Neptune cause power surges that threaten to destroy all life in the Solar System. Major Roy McBride is informed that the surge is antimatter in origin and may be connected to the "Lima Project", a space station in orbit around Neptune, sent twenty-nine years earlier to search for intelligent life and fuelled by antimatter. Roy's father, Clifford McBride, was the project's leader, a man considered a hero in SpaceCom history. Contact was lost sixteen years into its mission. Roy agrees to travel to Mars to use the last active long range communications station unaffected by the bursts in an effort to contact Clifford aboard the "Lima".

At the Moon SpaceCom base, Roy is told in secret by Colonel Pruitt that should he fail to make contact with the "Lima Project", the station will have to be destroyed. Roy obtains passage to Mars on the SpaceCom cruiser Cepheus.

On the way to Mars the Cepheus attend a distress call from a research station. During the investigation the captain is killed, the ship continues to Mars but is hit by a surge as it attempts to land. Roy assumes command from the overwhelmed (now in charge) first officer and calmly lands the ship. After securing himself in the underground SpaceCom complex, Roy begins recording officially pre-written voice messages and transmitting them to the Lima Project in hopes that his father, Clifford, will respond. Following several failed attempts, Roy ends up ignoring the official message and sends a personal message to his father stating that he hopes he will see him one day. Roy is then told he will be returning to Earth as his 'personal connection' makes him unsuitable for further service.

Roy is visited by facility director Helen Lantos, who reveals that her parents were Lima Project team members. She shows him classified footage revealing that Clifford's team mutinied and attempted to return to Earth, causing him to shut off their life-support systems; her parents were among those killed. She also states that the Cepheus is carrying a nuclear weapon and has now been requisitioned for a secret 'seek and destroy' mission without Roy. Seeing that that the 'hero' story was fabricated to hide the truth, Roy decides that he should deal with his father. Lantos facilitates Roy getting to the rocket as it prepares to depart.

Roy climbs aboard as the rocket takes off and is immediately discovered by the crew, who are unintentionally killed in the confrontation. During the 79-day journey to Neptune, a solitary Roy reflects on his relationship with his father and with his estranged wife, Eve. He finally arrives at the station and plants the nuclear bomb before encountering Clifford, the sole survivor of the Lima Project. Clifford explains that the surges are coming from an antimatter meltdown caused by the mutiny. He also admits to Roy that he never really cared about his family and does not consider Earth his home. Yet despite his efforts, the Lima Project found no other life in the entire knowable universe.

Roy copies data gathered about numerous planets by the Lima Project team and persuades Clifford to accompany him back to Earth. He arms the bomb and they climb out on the station's outer hull to return to the Cepheus. Clifford suddenly launches them into space using his spacesuit's thrusters. The old man pleads for Roy to untether and leave him; Roy reluctantly does so and watches his father drift away into space. He propels himself back to the Cepheus using his own spacesuit. Roy sends a message back to SpaceCom to ensure that if his return journey should fail that SpaceCom makes all effort to retrieve the data from the Lima Project he has recovered. Roy uses the shock wave from the nuclear explosion from the station as his primary propellent to propel the Cepheus back towards Earth.

Despite finding no signs of other life, the data from the Lima Project contains a treasure trove of information on many 'magnificent' worlds. Roy is entranced by their beauty and wonder, something that was lost on his father. He returns to Earth with a newfound optimism he was previously lacking, meeting with his estranged wife again.

Cast

Production

Development

Director and co-writer James Gray had originally met co-writer Ethan Gross while attending the USC School of Cinematic Arts together in the late 1980s. In June 2007, Gross contacted Gray, pitching the idea of a sci-fi film inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The two worked on the story intermittently, referring to it initially as Lima Project. On February 21, 2013, Gray and Gross would pitch the concept to producers Rodrigo Teixeira and Sophie Mas of RT Pictures at Babbo, an Italian restaurant in Manhattan. After Teixeira and Mas agreed to finance the screenwriting process, Gray and Gross would submit several drafts between November 29, 2013, and May 22, 2015, partly to solicit feedback from producers and colleagues: some of the changes made in this period included changing the character of John Gates, a father figure to main character Roy McBride, to Roy's actual father, before further rewriting the story so that the father was killed while in a cryogenic state, rather than in an active confrontation in earlier drafts. In addition, the story had originally been set on Saturn, but the release of Interstellar (2014) caused the setting to be moved to Neptune to draw more of a distinction between the two films.

Gray first confirmed his plans to write and direct Ad Astra on May 12, 2016, during the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. Six months later, Gray would consult theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss to assist in improving the film's scientific accuracy: one major change that resulted from this was the removal of a plot point regarding antimatter being found on Neptune.

In April 2017, while promoting The Lost City of Z, Gray compared the story of Ad Astra to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Gray also mentioned that he intended for the film to feature "the most realistic depiction of space travel that's been put in a movie and to basically say, 'Space is awfully hostile to us'". Gray also confirmed that filming for Ad Astra would commence on July 17, 2017.

Casting

In August 2016, while Gray was screening The Lost City of Z to producer Brad Pitt, the former had a conversation with the latter to discuss Ad Astra. Pitt expressed interest and agreed to both star in and co-produce the film; on April 10, 2017, Gray publicly confirmed that Pitt would star in Ad Astra. In June, Tommy Lee Jones joined the cast to portray Pitt's lost father. In August, Ruth Negga, John Finn, and Donald Sutherland joined the cast.

Filming

Principal photography on the film began on August 10, 2017 in Santa Clarita, California, lasting 60 days. After initial post-production work, test screenings were held on May 30 and July 18, 2018; following poor reception, reshoots were conducted (although Pitt was unavailable), increasing the production budget from $80 million to over $100 million. The character of Eve, originally named Liv (the name being changed to avoid confusion with her actress, Liv Tyler), was added as a love interest, and new scenes were added to the film; the according reshoots began on March 15, 2019, and lasted for seven days. Charlie Kaufman provided an uncredited rewrite of the voice-over dialogue in the film. Gray did not have control over the film's final cut, which he told The Hollywood Reporter was "as painful a thing as I have experienced outside the death of a loved one."