Brad Pitt Grapples with His Father's Actions in New Trailer for Space Thriller Ad Astra
Outer space got more interesting, and a little more handsome, in the newest trailer for Brad Pitt‘s Ad Astra.
The upcoming sci-fi drama sees Pitt’s astronaut Roy McBride blasting out of Earth’s atmosphere on a mission to save the world and find his long-lost astronaut father, played by Tommy Lee Jones.
Jones’ character Clifford McBride went missing in space years earlier while studying a “highly classified material.”
But the new trailer reveals that catastrophic power outages that the Earth has been experiencing, called “the surge,” could have something to do with his father, who may be hiding from the government while McBride believes him dead.
“This is Major Roy McBride, I’m attempting to reach Dr. Clifford McBride,” Pitt says at the beginning of the new trailer. “This is Dr. McBride’s son. Dad, I’d like to see you again.”
RELATED: Brad Pitt Films an Action Scene in a Full Spacesuit on the Side of an L.A. Freeway
Jones’ Clifford is a “Buzz Aldrin-type figure—if he’d gone mad in deep space,” director and co-writer James Gray, best known for his work on The Immigrant and The Lost City of Z, told Vanity Fair.
While Clifford is a madman, Roy has “schizoid tendencies,” Gray explained. “It’s really more of an attempt by us to examine a schizoid personality, and how that is preferred for astronauts in space travel, because you don’t have to connect emotionally.”
RELATED: Watch the First Trailer for Brad Pitt’s New Sci-Fi Drama Ad Astra
Ad Astra is latin for “to the stars,” and was inspired by the first ever nuclear chain reactions that took place at University of Chicago in the 1940s, which some thought would set off unstoppable reactions, or “science out of control,” Gray said.
Pitt and Jones are joined by Liv Tyler, Donald Sutherland and Oscar-nominated actress Ruth Negga in the film.
Ad Astra blasts off in theaters September 20.
