Amazon MGM Studios/Courtesy Everett Collection; Getty Images (2) Last week the stars aligned in a most quizzical way: April Fool’s Day, incoming full Moon, and a Crayon-shaped rocket ship named Artemis II (with an Orion capsule head) lifted off for ten days, holding four astronauts in a quest to boomerang around the Moon. A first.
Curiously, a suicide-mission, sci-fi film entitled Project Hail Mary had already taken off 11 days before nationwide on movie screens, breaking box office records at the speed of sound — its premise was to save the Earth via middle school science teacher-turned-astronaut Ryan Gosling and a macadam-clad E.T. named “Rocky” from a dying Sun.
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The film has also helped resuscitate a dwindling population of ticket-goers hoping for a feel-good escape-hatch picture in the midst of darkening times and popcorn machines.
“Are the scenarios all that different?” Here, a compare and contrast of the sci-fi vs. sci-fact missions that captured our attention last week. Neither missions are yet to be completed.
Josh Valcarcel/NASA via AP; Jonathan Olley/Amazon Courtesy Getty Images (3); Courtesy (2) Getty Images (2) Courtesy of NASA; Jonathan Olley/Amazon This story appeared in the April 8 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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