14 DAY TRIAL // Matt Damon has done it again, finding himself stranded in space, on an inhospitable planet and with minimal resources for survival. After Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar” (2014), Damon will play an astronaut once more in Ridley Scott’s upcoming “The Martian.”
The film is based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Andy Weir and is slated for theatrical release in November this year. It is now shooting on location in the desert, and the first official photos from it have just been released online.
Because the story focuses mostly on Damon’s character, astronaut Mark Watney, left on Mars by accident, with no possibility to contact Earth and let them know he’s alive, the photos are with him.
It seems that Scott is doing a fabulous job at making this a visually stunning film: really, there’s not much to discuss in the photos aside from Damon’s astronaut suit and the impressive Martian landscape in the background.
“The Martian” also stars Jessica Chastain (who, ironically, also starred in “Interstellar”), Sebastian Stan, Kristen Wiig, Sean Bean (who will probably die within the film’s first act, as Sean Bean does), Chiwetel Ejiofor, Donald Glover and Jeff Daniels.
Despite the stellar cast, the focus of the movie will be on Damon’s Watney, as Scott explains to EW. “He finds he has a problem, and instead of him collapsing into terror - because he’s got 28 days to live - and that’s if everything goes well for him - he knuckles down and actually starts to work it out,” the director explains.
We’ll have to check out the movie in theaters to see if he succeeds.
