Empire may have gobbled up coverage of Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, replete with an array of stills and exclusive details about Zack Snyder’s superhero showdown, but Total Film has secured one of this year’s more intriguing releases: Ridley Scott’s The Martian.
Starring Matt Damon as wayward botanist Mark Watney, Scott’s latest venture in sci-fi is lifted from the pages of Andy Weir’s best-selling novel of the same name, which imagines a future mission to the Red Planet that is abandoned in the face of a massive storm. Presumed to be dead, Watney is left stranded on the martian terrain, and must engineer a way to contact the Ares-3 for them to make the arduous four-year trip back to Mars in order to save him.
It won’t be easy, though; running low on resources, the crew are putting their own lives at risk by returning for Damon’s lone survivor, while the trailers released thus far indicate that NASA is wholly against the daring rescue mission, meaning that Ares-3 risks mutiny and the small issue of interplanetary travel.
Ridley Scott will return to the sci-fi genre – warming up the creative gears before Prometheus 2 shoots next year – when The Martian hits theaters on October 2. For now, let us know whether you’re excited about Matt Damon’s latest trip to the stars down below.
During a manned mission to Mars, Astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is presumed dead after a fierce storm and left behind by his crew. But Watney has survived and finds himself stranded and alone on the hostile planet. With only meager supplies, he must draw upon his ingenuity, wit and spirit to subsist and find a way to signal to Earth that he is alive. Millions of miles away, NASA and a team of international scientists work tirelessly to bring “the Martian” home, while his crewmates concurrently plot a daring, if not impossible rescue mission.
