He’s been skewed by arrows in Middle Earth, beheaded in Westeros and drawn and quartered in medieval England, but do you know where Sean Bean hasn’t met a sticky end yet? That’s right – space. Alas, even the final frontier may end up as a resting place for the oft-killed actor now that he’s joined the cast of Ridley Scott’s The Martian.
Bean will reportedly play a NASA flight director in the survival adventure, which was adapted from Andy Weir’s book of the same name by The Cabin in the Woods co-writer/director Drew Goddard. Though some of you may be wondering just how Bean’s character will wind up perishing given that he’s safely back on Earth, rest assured the actor will find a way. After all, he has a reputation to protect.
All jesting aside, word has it that, in a refreshing change of pace, Bean will survive until the end of The Martian. More imperilled is lead Matt Damon, who plays an astronaut who is accidentally left stranded on Mars by his crew, who believe him dead. With oxygen running out and no ability to contact the outside world, he struggles to avoid becoming not just the first man to land on Red Planet, but the first man to die there.
Jeff Daniels, Jessica Chastain, Kate Mara, Michael Peña, Kristen Wiig and Donald Glover also have roles in the pic, which will be Scott’s next project after this year’s Biblical epic Exodus: Gods and Kings. Before The Martian, Bean can be seen leading the TNT series Legends and also in upcoming sci-fi tentpole Jupiter Ascending and star-studded comedy Pixels.
The stacked cast and intriguing premise on display here have definitely piqued our interest, so we’ll be sure to keep our ears to the ground as The Martian enters production. It’s due to hit theaters on November 25th, 2015, suggesting that Twentieth Century Fox views the project as a potential awards contender (hardly surprising given its stellar pedigree and buzzy lineup of stars).
