The official trailer for Lucy in the Sky has arrived online. Fargo and Legion TV show creator Noah Hawley set his feature directing debut, Pale Blue Dot, in 2017, with Reese Witherspoon set to star and produce. Witherspoon later dropped out of the cast (due to a scheduling conflict with filming on Big Little Lies season 2), but was replaced by Natalie Portman not long after. The film was subsequently retitled Lucy in the Sky, with Portman playing an astronaut, Lucy Cola, who gradually loses her connection to her old life and family on earth after a lengthy mission in space.

Although the Lucy in the Sky teaser trailer debuted in March, the film didn’t get its October release date until a few weeks ago. It’s since been slated to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, suggesting Disney and Fox Searchlight feel the movie has the potential to be an awards season contender. Ahead of then, its marketing is picking back up with the release of a full-length trailer this week.

Fox unveiled the Lucy in the Sky trailer online today, ahead of its debut in theaters over the upcoming weeks. You can check it out in the space below, followed by the film’s newly-unveiled poster.

Where the Lucy in the Sky teaser focused more on Lucy’s transcendent experience in space, the official trailer shifts its attention to Lucy’s struggles to readjust to life on earth after her mission. It also dives into her subsequent affair with Mark Goodwin (Jon Hamm), her charming, but roguish fellow astronaut who makes Lucy feel truly alive agin… that is, until he dumps her and begins a romance with a younger astronaut trainee named Erin Eccles (Zazie Beetz). Lucy in the Sky’s story by Hawley, Brian C. Brown (About a Boy), and relative newcomer Elliott DiGuiseppi was partly inspired by a similar real-life love triangle between NASA astronauts Lisa Nowak, William Oefelein, and Colleen Shipman. The event infamously culminated with Nowak trying to kidnap Shipman in 2007, and the trailer suggests Lucy in the Sky will unfold in an identical manner.

Lucy in the Sky’s premise - that astronauts are known for losing their grip on reality after spending long periods of time in space - was criticized by real-life astronaut Marsha Ivans in a 2017 Time Magazine article. So, while the film is based on true events, it needs to be extra cautious about how its approaches this theme to avoid coming off as a sensationalized dramatization of a tragic and otherwise unprecedented incident. Hawley’s big ideas have gotten away from him in the past (especially on Legion), but the final results are generally interesting all the same and that may once again be the case with Lucy in the Sky. No doubt, the movie will benefit from having a strong cast that includes Ellen Burstyn, Nick Offerman, Dan Stevens, and Colman Domingo, in addition to its leads.

Source: Fox Searchlight

  • Lucy in the Sky Release Date: 2019-10-04