Paramount/Universal
Two of Hollywood’s most popular and talented actors are joining forces for the first time, but for a very surprising new film. Tommy Lee Jones and Brad Pitt will co-star in an upcoming science-fiction film from writer/director James Gray titled Ad Astra.
In Latin, “ad astra” means “to the stars,” and that’s exactly what Pitt will be doing in the film as he searches for his long-lost father.
Jones will play the father, who takes a one-way voyage to Neptune in order to search for signs of extra-terrestrial life and is never heard from again.
Twenty years later, his autistic engineer son Roy McBride (played by Pitt) sets out to find him and discover why his mission apparently failed.
Ad Astra is said to take inspiration from Joseph Conrad’s classic story “Heart of Darkness,” which was also the basis for Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam War-set film, Apocalypse Now.
This is actually Pitt’s third attempt at working with Gray after scheduling problems kept him from starring in two prior films.
In 2011, Gray was signed to direct a film adaptation of Mark Greaney’s thriller novel The Gray Man, with Pitt attached to star.
Gray and Pitt have since moved on, with The Usual Suspects‘ Christopher McQuarrie now slated to direct.
Pitt was then in talks to star in Gray’s Lost City of Z but had to pull out, ceding the starring role to Sons of Anarchy‘s Charlie Hunnam.
In fact, the only reason that Pitt is available to star in Ad Astra now is because the sequel to his 2013 film World War Z was delayed when director David Fincher came aboard, leaving a hole in his schedule.
Pitt can currently be seen in the Netflix Original Movie War Machine, which debuted on the service on May 26, 2017. Jones was last seen in 2016’s Mechanic: Resurrection and is currently filming Rob Reiner’s Shock and Awe, about the lead-up to the 2003 American invasion of Iraq.
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