RocketMan

RocketMan (1997)

He's just taking up space!

An accident-prone and obnoxious geek joins a NASA space mission to Mars. During the flight, he manages to put himself and the entire crew in jeopardy, but is in danger of emerging as a hero when his new colleagues need him to save them from the unforgiving surface of the red planet.

Date of release
1997-10-10
TMDB
5.2 / 10 (153)
Runtime
1h 35m
Genres
Comedy, Family, Science Fiction
Director
Stuart Gillard

Casting

Interesting facts

RocketMan is a 1997 American comic science fiction film produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Caravan Pictures, and distributed by Buena Vista Pictures Distribution. Directed by Stuart Gillard, it stars Harland Williams, Jessica Lundy, William Sadler, and Jeffrey DeMunn.

Production

The idea for what would become RocketMan came about from Craig Mazin, who was then an ad copywriter for Walt Disney Studios, and his writing partner Greg Erb. They were brainstorming movie ideas when the idea "What if Apollo 13 starred a goofball instead of Tom Hanks" appeared the most marketable.

Harland Williams was cast in the lead role after turning down George of the Jungle. He was dissatisfied with elements of the script and claimed to have rewritten it twice, though he went uncredited. Among his contributions include the extensions of the sound deprivation chamber and g-force scenes, Randall screaming after getting accepted (which Harland based on Miss America Pageants), and the scene where Randall and Julie bond over stars in the s…

The film was shot on location at the Lake Point Plaza in Sugar Land, Texas, in a recently constructed building for Fluor Corporation. The building exterior was dressed with NASA signage to give the appearance of shooting at the actual NASA site. The movie was also filmed in Moab, Utah, for scenes on the surface of Mars.

The filmmakers spent nine weeks at the Johnson Space Center, in Houston, Texas, shooting at the famous Rocket Park, the gargantuan Building 9 that houses all of the spacecraft mock-ups for the ongoing shuttle missions, and Building 32, which houses the world's largest thermal vacuum chamber and simulates all conditions of outer space (except zero gravity).

To prepare for their roles as astronauts, the three stars attended the U.S. Space Camp at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, riding in simulators and participating in other activities.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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