The new IMAX 3D film, “A Beautiful Planet,” features footage of the Earth captured by the astronauts on the space station. See the movie poster at collectSPACE.com .
Credit: IMAX
A new IMAX 3D space movie promises to let you “experience Earth like never before.”
“A Beautiful Planet,” narrated by Academy Award-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence, features footage of our home world as captured by astronauts on board the International Space Station. The movie, which was made in cooperation with NASA and is a co-production between IMAX and The Walt Disney Studios, will debut in large-format theaters on April 29.
“‘A Beautiful Planet’ provides a unique perspective on our relationship with Earth, offering audiences a vantage point that very few have ever been able to experience,” stated Alan Bergman, president of Walt Disney Studios. “IMAX is a perfect format for the film’s spectacular and immersive imagery.” [Photos: IMAX Cameras in Space ]
The movie’s poster, revealed Wednesday (Feb. 10), shows the Earth from the astronauts’ vantage point on the space station, 250 miles (400 km) above the planet. The poster confirmed Lawrence as the film’s narrator and debuted the tag line, “Experience Earth like never before.”
The film’s synopsis describes Earth as a “magnificent blue planet, dotted with gossamer clouds,” but cautions that it is changing. “From space, the Earth blazes at night with the electric intensity of human expansion across the globe. But it is within our power to protect the planet.”
“While we continue to explore and gain knowledge of our galaxy, we also develop a deeper connection to the place we all call home.”
Since September 2014, five astronauts on board the space station have used IMAX-provided Canon digital cameras to film both the Earth below and their activities on the orbiting laboratory. NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore, Terry Virts, Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren took part in the filming, as did Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui.
“The crew [has done] an absolutely wonderful job,” director Toni Myers remarked in a NASA interview in 2015. “We’re deluged with beautiful images.”
Myers has been making IMAX films since 1971. Her most recent documentary feature and seventh space movie was “Hubble 3D ,” which chronicled NASA’s final space shuttle mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. Since its release in 2010, “Hubble 3D” has grossed nearly $70 million.
“A Beautiful Planet” is Myers’ second shot-in-space feature to look back at Earth.
“The 1990 IMAX film ‘Blue Planet’ was the first time we pointed IMAX cameras from space back to Earth to reveal, on a grand scale, the changes being made to our planet by both natural and human forces,” Myers said in 2013 . “It is marvelous and important to have this new opportunity to show what has happened to our planet since then.”
In addition to “Blue Planet” and “Hubble 3D,” Myers’ space films include “Hail Columbia” (1982), “The Dream is Alive” (1985), “Destiny in Space” (1994), “Mission to Mir” (1997), and “Space Station 3D” (2002).
Astronaut Scott Kelly seen training on how to use IMAX’s cameras before his yearlong space station mission.
Credit: NASA/Lauren Harnett
“Toni has crafted a remarkable film that uniquely captures the raw beauty of our planet,” said Greg Foster, the senior executive vice president of IMAX Corp. and CEO of IMAX Entertainment, in a statement about “A Beautiful Planet.”
Lawrence, who has starred in the “Hunger Games” movie series and won an Academy Award for her role in the 2012 romantic comedy “Silver Linings Playbook,” joins Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Cruise and the late Leonard Nimoy as the celebrities who have lent their voices as narrators for IMAX space films .
“A Beautiful Planet” is the first of two space-related movies involving Lawrence this year. In December, she will star in Columbia Pictures’ “Passengers,” a science fiction film that is set aboard a spacecraft traveling to a distant planet.
See the movie poster for “A Beautiful Planet,” the new IMAX 3D film, at collectSPACE.com.
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