The last time Ryan Gosling and Damien Chazelle teamed up, their collaboration led to Oscar glory.
The La La Land duo’s latest project looks like it’s aiming to follow the same trajectory, though the Academy Award-winning director’s follow-up to his 2016 musical certainly won’t include any song or dance.
The forthcoming First Man stars Gosling as astronaut Neil Armstrong and follows his harrowing journey to set foot on the moon. But judging by the trailer, which dropped on Friday night during Jimmy Kimmel Live, the movie will play more like a thriller than an inspirational biopic.
The risks behind the space trip are underscored repeatedly in the footage, with Armstrong’s wife (played by The Crown star Claire Foy) fretting about the safety regulations for the mission.
At April’s CinemaCon, the annual conference for movie theatre owners held in Las Vegas, Universal Pictures unveiled footage from the movie for the first time. On stage, Gosling admitted that it was hard for him to “imagine the magnitude of risk — the improbability of success — when a few pioneers decided to leave Earth entirely.”
Chazelle told exhibitors that he “really wanted to get to know the people who embarked on this unimaginable journey.” Accordingly, it seems as if moviegoers will get a glimpse of Armstrong’s family life; one scene features the astronaut’s son anxiously asking over dinner whether his father will return home.
“There are risks,” his dad replies stoically, “but we have every intention of coming back.”
Universal will release First Man in the US on October 12, priming the film for an awards season run.
