What does the official plot synopsis reveal about Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity?

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

GRAVITY was a movie that almost didn’t happen. At one point, every halfway decent actress in Hollywood was attached to star in the ambitious sci-fi project from Alfonso Cuaron. Angelina Jolie was originally set to star in the film with Robert Downey, Jr. Natalie Portman was her intiial replacement but she too walked. Scarlett Johansson, Blake Lively, Naomi Watts, Marion Cotillard, Carey Mulligan, Sienna Miller, Abbie Cornish, Rebecca Hall and Olivia Wilde all tested/auditioned for the role before producers finally settled on Sandra Bullock. (RDJ also walked and was replaced by George Clooney.)

During that down time, Cuaron and his crew spent time fine-tuning the script, which revolves around a female astronaut lost and adrift in space. But there’s clearly much more to the story than that, and exactly what that is, Cuaron is keeping a mystery. Today WB revealed the official synopsis for the film and maybe that will give us a glimpse inside…

Bullock plays Dr. Ryan Stone, a brilliant medical engineer on her first shuttle mission, with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky (Clooney) in command of his last flight before retiring. But on a seemingly routine spacewalk, disaster strikes. The shuttle is destroyed, leaving Stone and Kowalsky completely alone–tethered to nothing but each other and spiraling out into the blackness.

But the only way home may be to go further out into the terrifying expanse of space.

I had read a previous draft of the script and this is similar yet different (unless the synopsis is being deliberately misleading). It almost seems like CAST AWAY IN SPACE. What should be really interesting is to what Cuaron and Emmanuel Lubezki (working in 3D for the first time) have planned. There have been rumors that the film will be shot, or at least presented, in one-take, which would be fascinating to experience.