GET ME SOMEONE WHO CAN WRITE ABOUT A guy tramping through the snow!” a cigar-chomping producer bellows into his phone. You could be forgiven for wondering if that’s how Mark L Smith got the gig on Netflix movie The Midnight Sky, given that it’s similarly snow-shrouded to his Oscar winning frontiersman tale The Revenant. But there’s much more to the story than that. For starters, half of it unfolds in the even chillier environs of space.
Based on Lily Brooks-Dalton’s 2017 novel Good Morning, Midnight, it’s set in 2049, and centres on Augustine Lofthouse (George Clooney, who also directs), an astronomer based at a remote Arctic station. When a humanity-ending global catastrophe (something to do with the atmosphere) strikes, his colleagues fly off to be with their families at the end.
But Lofthouse – who’s dying from cancer – stays behind, using the little time left to him to try and contact the Aether: a space vessel returning from a recently discovered moon of Jupiter, whose crew includes Felicity Jones’s Sully. This involves a perilous journey to another station – accompanied by Iris (Caoilinn Springall), a close-mouthed young girl who’s somehow been left behind…
It was the writer’s manager who brought the book to him. He was immediately smitten. “I just fell in love with the characters and the world,” Smith tells SFX. “Lily BrooksDalton is such a wonderful writer. I love stories that strip away a lot of the technology, like a Revenant situation, where it’s man against nature, and man against himself.
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Denne historien er fra Holiday Special 2020-utgaven av SFX.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Making Alien - Jaws in Space - Forty-five years on from its original release, Alien continues to terrify. We dissect what arguably remains the most chilling instalment in the saga
The seven-strong crew of the commercial mining spacecraft the Nostromo seal their fate after reluctantly responding to a mysterious distress signal on a hostile planet. Here, a face-hugging alien from a derelict ship impregnates and later kills executive officer Kane (John Hurt) after its offspring is birthed onboard. After being unleashed, the fearsome newborn with acid for blood proceeds to dispatch the remainder of the crew.Ridley Scott's much more convoluted prequels have yet to reveal how the knowledge that led to this initial interception was acquired. However, the premise of the original Alien is perfect in its uncomplicated purity.
PURE AND SIMPLE
IN THE FINAL PART OF OUR EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW, SHOWRUNNER RUSSELL T DAVIES TALKS RELAUNCHING DOCTOR WHO
TO CAP IT ALL OFF
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS OF THE BBC SERIES THE TRIPODS
FRENCH REVOLUTION
THE WALKING DEAD SPIN-OFF SHOWRUNNER DAVID ZABEL ON BEING GIVEN THE TOUGH TASK OF REUNITING DARYL AND CAROL IN FRANCE
SILENT KILLERS
THE DIRECTOR OF HOLLYWOOD'S SPEAK NO EVIL REMAKE ON HORROR, COMEDY AND JAMES MCAVOY
BRING OUT YOUR DEAD
THE GHOST WITH THE MOST RETURNS FINALLY - IN BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE
TEENAGE DREAM
JOE LOCKE HITS THE ROAD RUNNING
MOB RULE THE PENGUIN
GOTHAM'S UP FOR GRABS IN BRUISING NEW CRIME SAGA BUT WHERE IS THE BATMAN?
SEASON OF THE WITCH
AS MARVEL TELEVISION CARVES OUT A NEW PATH FOR ITSELF, WE SPEAK TO CREATOR JAC SCHAEFFER, PLUS A CAST OF STARS LED BY KATHRYN HAHN AND JOE LOCKE, ABOUT THE MAGIC OF WANDAVISION'S SPIN-OFF AGATHA ALL ALONG
Ghouls Allowed
Even silence can't save you at this year's Halloween Horror Nights
