Gravity’s Latest Image Reveals A Weightless Sandra Bullock
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With a large swath of action/adventure/science fiction movies coming out this year, including Star Trek Into Darkness, Pacific Rim, and Oblivion, it’s good to see that there will be some more highbrow and intellectual sci-fi arriving this year as well. Although Sebastián Cordero’s Europa Report is currently available via On Demand with cable television, another similar movie is still months away. Director Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity is positioned to also be an awards favorite at the end of the year, and the 51-year-old Mexican director is putting the finishing touches on the film before its world premiere at the 70th Annual Venice Film Festival in Italy at the end of August.
While Gravity doesn’t open theatrically until October, Warner Bros. has shared a new image from the science fiction film. In an interview with USA Today, director Alfonso Cuarón talked briefly about the “weightlessness” featured in the new film. Cuarón wanted the film to feel as if it was really shot in zero gravity, which made for a tough shoot. “We wanted to shoot the whole film showing zero gravity with the actors moving in a choreographic way,” says Cuarón. “This has never been done before. It was a journey of learning. But it looks pretty darn good.”
The above image showcases one of the film’s central actors, Sandra Bullock. Her character is Dr. Ryan Stone, a medical engineer who is on her first Space Shuttle mission. A veteran astronaut named Matt Kowalsky (George Clooney), who is on his last shuttle mission, accompanies Dr. Stone. Cuarón says that her character is “confronted with the idea that Earth is so far away. She can see the whole Earth and she doesn’t belong to it. What is really scary for people is being lost or alone in the immensity of the void.”
Gravity has seen a number of delays and missteps during production. It was originally going to be release last year, and was expected to open the 65th Annual Cannes Film Festival in France. At the last minute, Cuarón pulled the film and continued to work on the film’s special effects and 3D.
In fact, director James Cameron worked with Cuarón and Gravity cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki on the 3D camera technology for the space epic. One of the reasons why Gravity was delayed for so long was that Cuarón didn’t feel he had the tools available to him to re-create the weightlessness of space in a movie. So Cuarón called in his longtime friend Cameron and the pair worked through the 3D technology to bring Gravity to life.
After a seven-year hiatus between films, Gravity will be the Alfonso Cuarón’s first film since his science fiction classic Children of Men in 2006. With everything we’ve been seeing from the film so far, it looks like Gravity will be completely worth the wait. In the rush of more popcorn-friendly science fiction action adventures, it’s refreshing to see a movie like Gravity get off the ground.
Gravity will hit theaters on October 4th, in 3D and IMAX.
