The Space Between Us

The Space Between Us follows Gardner Elliot, the first person born on Mars. His mother, an astronaut, died giving birth to him, and he has spent his life in a small experimental colony under the care of scientists, knowing only a handful of people. Curious about his origins, he strikes up an online friendship with Tulsa, a teenager in Colorado, and eventually travels to Earth to meet her and to search for the father he never knew. Once there, he sets out across the country with Tulsa, while the NASA team that raised him, including project head Nathaniel Shepherd and caregiver Kendra Wyndham, worries about how his body will cope with a planet it was not made for.

Peter Chelsom directed the film, which came after Hector and the Search for Happiness in his filmography, from a screenplay by Allan Loeb. Asa Butterfield plays Gardner, with Britt Robertson as Tulsa, Carla Gugino as Kendra, Gary Oldman as Shepherd, Janet Montgomery as Sarah Elliot and BD Wong as Tom Chen.

Released in 2017, the film had a budget of 30 million US dollars and took about 15 million worldwide, a weak return. On IMDb it holds 6.4 out of 10 from more than 55,000 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 7 out of 10 from a much smaller pool of around 2,600 voters. A film critics' rating of 4.3 out of 10 from 136 reviews places it well below the audience scores.