If anyone said a decade ago that "Adam Sandler will be in serious movies" then everyone would have scoffed. Yet here we are, Sandler proving his gravitas once more, as the trailer for an upcoming Netflix psychological sci-fi movie epic has just dropped. And just a glimpse shows why the service continues to look like one of the best streaming options.
With Chernobyl director, Johan Renck, at the helm, Netflix's Spaceman stars Sandler as the titular character, who 189 days into his mission in space and increasingly missing his wife, played by the emphatically melancholic Carey Mulligan, begins to lose his mind... or does he? The full movie comes to Netflix from 1 March. Check out the trailer below (arachnophobes excluded, please):
Spaceman already looks like a future classic Netflix new no.1 movie, not least because it features Paul Dano playing a bloomin' massive arachnid (slash Sandler's conscious or the representation of his emotional struggle – will have to watch to find out), but because Renck's isolated settings look haunting yet gorgeous in the same breath.
The movie looks to well represent the book on which it is based, Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfař, which is about a Czech astronaut, Jakub Procházka, who is sent on a solo mission into a cloud of intergalactic dust that no other nation is willing to explore. So while the basis is very sci-fi, the heart of this tale is very human.
Spaceman is due to screen at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival in Germany from 15 February this year, with it coming to distributor Netflix from 1 March. That's a bit of time to wait for streaming fans, but as with any Awards-worthy movie a theatrical screening process is always on the cards. Besides, any space epic ought to be seen on the big screen, so here's hoping for a short-run cinema cycle too.
Thus far the movie hasn't been screened to critics or select audiences, with its Rotten Tomatoes page currently entirely blank of a score. It looks like a quality production nonetheless, and with Netflix wielding the axe on 100+ shows as it aims for quality over quantity, this sci-fi movie epic looks like a sure sign of the streaming service's strong direction after its recent price rise and password crackdown.
