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      Poignant The Midnight Sky wrestles with whether mankind is worth saving

      Jennifer Ouellette · news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Thursday, 24 December, 2020 - 16:36 · 1 minute

    "I hate being cold more than anything in the world," actor/director George Clooney confesses in a featurette (embedded below) on the making of his new post-apocalyptic science fiction film, The Midnight Sky .  But in order to play a terminally ill astronomer in the Arctic after a cataclysmic event kills most of the people on Earth, Clooney had to endure weeks of shooting in frigid conditions in Iceland. The film is adapted from the critically acclaimed 2016 debut novel, Good Morning, Midnight , by Lily Brooks-Dalton, which has been compared to Kim Stanley Robinson's Aurora and Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven .

    (Some mild spoilers below, but no major reveals.)

    In the novel, a brilliant astronomer named Augustine is posted to the Arctic, scanning the night sky for clues about the birth of the universe. Then a mysterious global apocalypse occurs, prompting all his fellow scientists to evacuate. But Augustine remains behind, dedicated to continuing his research, even as the airwaves go silent. Meanwhile, a team of astronauts aboard the spaceship Aether is set to return to Earth after a mission to Jupiter. On board is Sully, who sacrificed her marriage and left her daughter behind in order to become one of the first humans to travel so far in our Solar System. The astronauts are unaware of the catastrophe that has befallen Earth, and it falls to Augustine to warn them not to return.

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      George Clooney is a grizzled Arctic astronomer in The Midnight Sky trailer

      Jennifer Ouellette · news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Tuesday, 27 October, 2020 - 20:47 · 1 minute

    George Clooney directs and stars in The Midnight Sky , based on the novel Good Morning, Midnight by Lily Brooks-Dalton.

    Netflix has bet heavily this year on high-profile feature films starring A-list talent: first with Chris Hemsworth in Extraction , and then with Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron in The Old Guard . That bet has largely paid off . Now the streaming platform has tapped another Oscar winner, George Clooney, to direct and star in the post-apocalyptic science fiction film The Midnight Sky . It's adapted from the critically acclaimed 2016 debut novel, Good Morning, Midnight , by Lily Brooks-Dalton, which has been compared to Kim Stanley Robinson's Aurora and Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven . The official trailer just dropped, and it's giving us some strong Away vibes (which, alas, has been canceled by Netflix after just one season).

    In the novel, a brilliant astronomer named Augustine is posted to the Arctic, scanning the night sky for clues about the birth of the universe. Then a mysterious global apocalypse occurs, prompting all his fellow scientists to evacuate. But Augustine remains behind, dedicated to continuing his research, even as the airwaves go silent. Meanwhile, a team of astronauts aboard the spaceship Aether is set to return to Earth after a mission to Jupiter. On board is Sully, who sacrificed her marriage and left her daughter behind in order to become one of the first humans to travel so far in our Solar System. The astronauts are unaware of the catastrophe that has befallen Earth, and it falls to Augustine to warn them not to return.

    Clooney's film adaptation looks like it will hew closely to the novel. Per the official premise: "This post-apocalyptic tale follows Augustine (Clooney, Syriana, Argo ), a lonely scientist in the Arctic, as he races to stop Sully (Felicity Jones, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story ) and her fellow astronauts from returning home to a mysterious global catastrophe." The cast also includes David Oyelowo ( Selma, Don't Let Go ) as Commander Tom Adewole, Ethan Peck ( Star Trek: Discovery ), Sophie Rundle ( Peaky Blinders ), Kyle Chandler ( Bloodline, First Man ) as Matthew, Tiffany Boone ( The Following ) as Maya, Demián Bichir ( A Better Life ) as Sanchez, and Caoilinn Springall as Iris, a mysterious child that Augustine befriends in the Arctic.

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