Back in 2018, word leaked thatRichard Linklater, celebrated Texas filmmaker behindBefore Midnight,Boyhood, andDazed and Confused, would be tackling a movie based around the moon landing.Last year he told methat while it didn’t get off the “launch pad,” he was going to “take another run at it.” And apparently, that run was successful, because today Netflix announced thatApollo 10 ½: A Space Age Adventurewould be coming to the streaming platform.
Described as combining live-action with hand-drawn and CGI animation, the new movie “tells the story of the first moon landing in the summer of 1969 from two interwoven perspectives. It both captures the astronaut and mission control view of the triumphant moment, and the lesser-seen bottom up perspective of what it was like from an excited kid’s perspective, living near NASA but mostly watching it on TV like hundreds of millions of others. It’s ultimately both an exacting re-creation of this special moment in history and a kid’s fantasy about being plucked from his average life in suburbia to secretly train for a covert mission to the moon.” It’s inspired by Linklater’s own childhood in Houston, Texas, in the 1960s. Yes please.
The incredibly starry cast forApollo 10 ½: A Space Age AdventureincludesJack Black,Zachary Levi,Glen Powell,Josh Wiggins,Milo Coy,Lee Eddy,Bill Wise,Natalie L’Amoreaux,Jessica Brynn Cohen, Sam Chipman, andDanielle Guilbot. According to Netflix, the live-action portion of the movie was completed in March, just ahead of the global shutdown, with animation being handled by Submarine.
Linklater said in a statement: “It struck me years ago that this was my film to make, from both a chronological and proximity level - I was there, going into 3rd grade. Our unique animation style allows both the conjuring of a world long gone, and the flowing, playful expression of memory and imagination. It’s been a fun, creative journey to incorporate things like 3D graphics into a live action shoot to help bring this story to life.”
The filmmaker has made two animated features beforeApollo 10 ½: A Space Age Adventure– 2001’s dreamyWaking Lifeand 2006’s weirdly underratedPhilip K. DickadaptationA Scanner Darkly(for Warner Bros). Production ofA Scanner Darkly, an admittedly ambitious animated feature on a severely constricted budget, was incredibly fraught, with a large swath of the animation team replaced midway through production. Even after the difficult production ofA Scanner Darkly(during which timehe commented to Wired Magazine: “I know how to make a movie, but I don’t really know how to handle the animation"), Linklater flirted with a remake ofThe Incredible Mr. Limpet(also for Warner Bros), which would combine live-action and animation in a more traditional way. (His previous two films had utilized a process called rotoscoping, in which live-action images were “painted over” by animators.)
Basically, whatever Linklater is getting into, we’re down for, and even if it takes a few more years to complete his Apollo mission, it’ll be just as exciting whenever it’s done.
