Space Station ’76 Channels Seventies-Style Sci-Fi, Finds A Home At Sony
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South by Southwest Music, Interactive, and Film Festival is in full effect in Austin, Texas. There are many low-budget indie movies that will premiere among smaller studio releases such as Jon Favreau’s Chef and the Veronica Mars movie. The main draw for SXSW’s film slate is the indie films that didn’t make the cut for the Sundance Film Festival a few months ago. Among them is a new science fiction comedy called Space Station 76.
THR reports that Space Station 76 will find its way into theaters soon. Jack Plotnick co-wrote and directed the film, which features a story about “a group of people (and several robots) living on a space station in a 1970’s-version of the future who are forced to confront their darkest secrets when a new Assistant Captain arrives and inadvertently ignites tensions among the crew.” Jennifer Cox, Sam Pancake, Kali Rocha, and Michael Stoyanov also co-wrote Space Station 76. The film premiered on March 8 as part of the Visions section during SXSW.
“We are thrilled to be working with Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions as our international distribution partner and are excited for the film to reach a large, earthly audience,” said the film’s director and co-writer. Jack Plotnick is mainly a TV actor with appearances on a few hit shows such as Criminal Minds, The Mentalist, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Reno 911!, and Joan of Arcadia. He also has a few film credits, including in French director Quentin Dupieux’s genre-bending trilogy of Rubber, Wrong, and Wrong Cops.
While the science fiction comedy is a rare breed, there are a few notable movies in the sub-genre. Spaceballs, Army of Darkness, Sleepers, The World’s End, Short Circuit, and Galaxy Quest all come to mind. The original Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day are masterpieces of the genre (both from the late Harold Ramis, I might add), while Star Trek dialed up plenty of humor in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. It’ll be interesting to see if Space Station 76 earns its place in their company.
Space Station 76 stars Patrick Wilson, Liv Tyler, Matt Bomer, Marisa Coughlan, Kylie Rogers, Kali Rocha, Jerry O’Connell, and Keir Dullea, and it was written by Jack Plotnick, Jennifer Cox, Sam Pancake, Kali Rocha, and Michael Stoyanov.
Sony Pictures has yet to announce when Space Station 76 will be released, but it will likely hit theaters in limited release sometime later this year. Sony really isn’t in the market for releasing their movies to watch at home instead of or before a theatrical release, so we probably shouldn’t expect an early VOD premiere.
