The phrase “famous firsts” usually conjures images of inventors and inventions. It also conjures early explorers, those who crossed an ocean to find a new home to settle in, those who climbed the tallest peaks, those who made it the farthest to the North and the farthest to the South. And of course it all conjures famous scientific feats, famous explorations upward. A real-life famous first explorer is the subject of one of today’s trailers, two are science fiction visions of firsts of the future, and we added one other trailer just to bookend the set–the latest post-apocalyptic sci-fi movie.
It’s probably the right time for a big-budget movie to showcase Neil Armstrong’s first moonshot with Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. Then again, it’s a bit early, as the Apollo 11 50th anniversary doesn’t arrive until next summer. Beginning with Clint Eastwood at the helm, a movie adaptation of Professor James R. Hansen’s 2005 biography of Armstrong, First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong, was passed around with development issues for several years. The result, First Man, is finally arriving in theaters in October (we previewed the first trailer back in June here at borg.com). One of Hollywood’s current go-to guys, Ryan Gosling was cast as Armstrong, with Claire Foy as his wife Janet. A more interesting supporting slate may get some attention, hopefully filling out the story as a worthy follow-on to The Right Stuff and Apollo 13, although the trailer looks like a family drama focused on Neil and Janet. Ciarán Hinds plays NASA director Robert Gilruth, Kyle Chandler (Early Edition, Super 8) plays astronaut Deke Slayton, Jason Clarke (Terminator: Genisys, Winchester), plays astronaut Ed White, Ethan Embry (That Thing You Do, Hawaii Five-O) plays astronaut Pete Conrad, Xena: Warrior Princess’s William Gregory Lee plays astronaut Gordo Cooper, and in the big seats Corey Stoll (Marvel’s Ant-Man) and Lukas Haas (The Revenant, Solarbabies) play the other guys in the capsule, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins.
Another big first will no doubt be humanity’s first trip to Mars–if we get that far–and a new Hulu series will take on chronicling what that project may be like in the series called simply First. It stars Sean Penn.
