The fact that this movie exists should be cause for celebration. With more and more big-budget movies being based solely on IPs (no matter how obscure or ridiculous *cough* MAX STEEL *cough*), it's nice when there's not only an original idea, but one that was based on a spec script. I mean, PASSENGERS is one of the few big films in recent memory that wasn't at some point a comic-book, novel, or f*cking toy.
Not saying being based on IPs is necessarily bad (many of my favorite movies of the last few years were comic-book movies), just that the saturation of them is the problem. So it's nice to have a change of pace.
PASSENGERS stars Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt as…does it really matter? You're going to see it anyway. But alright, the film is set in the future where a colony of people are travelling to a distant planet and two of them (Lawrence and Pratt, natch) wake up sixty years early when there's a malfunction in their sleep chambers. A romance ensues (as per Hollywood rules involving two hot people alone together. It's just math).
Anyway, here's the poster:
Not much to go on (and barely registers as sci-fi), but it's probably doing its job. Not the biggest fan of "floating head" poster designs (of which this is a variant) but this will definitely put butts in the seats. So, bravo?
PASSENGERS, directed by Morten Tyldum (IMITATION GAME) will be released in theaters December 21st, 2016.