A few months ago, Apollo 18 got pushed way back from its original release date. A new trailer has now been released which shows the tone of the film didn’t really change all that much.
We still don’t know what caused the irregular delay. It’s normal for a film to be delayed by a week or so sometime, but even that can be potentially deadly to the box-office draw.
So, yes, a delay of nine months is certainly very strange, although the postponement could have been part of the plan for the film.
Having it inexplicably delayed almost a year after getting the creepy trailer into theaters, well, that just might have served to increase the mysterious air of the film. Mostly, however, I think people probably have all forgotten about it in the interim.
Still, the studio has decided to move the release date back up again, so we’ll actually get it this fall, instead of after the new year.
Of course, it’s also possible the studio got into some kind of contractual dispute, or serious post-production issue, which required reshooting some scenes. Either way, it seems to be all set now, and the studio has released a new trailer. It’s actually very similar to the one which showed up in theaters back in March.
The new sci-fi thriller supposedly depicts, through “unaltered footage,” the secret 18th mission of the Apollo program, which officially ended with Apollo 17. The mission comes under attack by an alien entity of some kind while “parked” on the moon. The tagline for the film suggests this is the real reason the US stopped flying to the moon.
One of the few additions to this trailer that I notice is a couple lines of informative dialog. While following some boot-prints, the men now mention something about “cosmonauts,” suggesting a Cold War conspiracy. We also hear mission control tell the men that their mission is over, and that they are to return home.
In addition, this version of the trailer removes some detail, as the first one showed several scenes depicting an infection picked up by one of the astronauts, which causes several deformities, and some erratic behavior. It seems like they want to generate more mystery with this one, but I think it’s way too late to take back the details they already gave us.
The whole production and release of the movie has been shrouded in secrecy, with the studio saying nothing about the production process or casting, nor in any other way publicly admitting the movie depicts a fictional narrative. All of the promotional material and press information indicates only that the film is assembled from real footage from the (officially cancelled) Apollo 18 mission.
Apollo 18 will hit theaters on September 2, 2011.
