The Spacewalker
Short description
Set during the Cold War space race between the Soviet Union and the United States, The Spacewalker follows two Soviet pilots chosen for a mission meant to put a man outside a spacecraft before the Americans can manage the same feat. A veteran military flier, Pavel Belyaev, is paired with the younger, more impulsive Alexey Leonov. When an unmanned test craft explodes shortly before the scheduled launch, there is no time to establish the cause, and the mission proceeds despite the dangers. The two men are sent up in a small ship that has not been properly tested, and much of what they encounter in flight was never anticipated.
Dmitry Kiselev directed the film, which sits between Black Lightning (2009) and Chernobyl: Zone of Exclusion (2019) in his filmography. The screenplay was written by Yuri Korotkov, Sergey Kaluzhanov and Irina Pivovarova, and Timur Bekmambetov was among the producers. Evgeny Mironov plays Leonov and Konstantin Khabenskiy plays Belyaev, with Vladimir Ilin as Sergey Korolev and Anatoliy Kotenyov as Nikolay Kamanin heading a credited cast of 38.
Release came in April 2017. Made for about 7 million USD, the film took roughly 10 million USD worldwide, a modest return. On IMDb it holds 7.2/10 from around 8,700 votes; on TMDB it has 7/10 from 364 votes, so the two audiences are closely aligned.
What's left behind the scenes
- Evgeny Mironov attempted to repeat one of Alexei Leonov’s most incredible feats during his spacewalk – to perform a somersault in the airlock tube with a diameter of just over a meter, but he was unable to do so.
- Great attention was paid to details that reflected the historical era. In particular, the astronauts can be seen wearing watches released to commemorate Gagarin's flight. The artists were able to find them with collectors.
- One of the screenwriters of the film is the well-known author Yuri Korotkov ("Accident - Daughter of a Policeman", "The 9th Company", "Stilyagi").
- The performers of the main roles underwent a three-month intensive training course for physical endurance before filming. According to Mironov, one of the most difficult challenges on the film was two shifts where he hung on cables for several hours, portraying a state of weightlessness.
- The film is based on real events surrounding the first-ever spacewalk, performed by Alexei Leonov from the Voskhod-2 spacecraft.
- Two mock-ups of the descent module were made for the film – one capsule was used for interior shots, the other for exterior shots.
- The spacesuits were made from special materials used in astronautics. Each one weighs 30 kg. The height is 170 cm.
- Konstantin Khabensky was approved for the role of Pavel Belyaev without an audition.
- To make the zero-gravity scenes look as spectacular as possible, digital doubles of Mironov and Khabensky were created. The actors were scanned on a circular setup with 80 cameras.
- Cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin voiced one of the mission control employees.
- The spotlight simulating sunlight weighed 50 kg.
- Initially, Sergei Bodrov was planned to direct, with the film scheduled for release in the spring of 2016. However, the team began filming under the leadership of Yuri Bykov in the summer of 2015. In early 2016, after filming all the dramatic scenes, the director left the project by mutual agreement with the film's producers, Timur Bekmambetov and Evgeny Mironov. Dmitry Kiselev had to film the remaining action scenes.
- The weight of the exterior capsule is 200 kg, and its diameter is 235 cm.
- Konstantin Khabensky was approved for the role of Pavel Belyayev without an audition. The filmmakers specifically wanted him to play this character.
- Specifically for the filming, costume designers created four spacesuits: two for the actors and two for their doubles. Unlike the suits from 1965, the costumes were much lighter, but due to the synthetic material, the performers literally sweated profusely in them. The helmets were custom-made by an English company that works with Hollywood studios.
- Alexey Leonov served as the film's chief consultant.
- It took the artists 8,700 hours to create the sets.
- The idea for the film belongs to Evgeny Mironov, who began its implementation as a producer, receiving approval personally from Alexei Leonov. The celebrated cosmonaut became one of the project's main consultants.
- Active cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin voiced one of the Mission Control employees.
- Viktor Blagov, an employee of RSC Energia and one of the launch directors of Vostok-2, worked on the project.
- The main filming took place in Moscow, in one of the hangars belonging to the former ZIL plant, where set designers built three full-scale "Voskhod-2" models. One was used to film scenes in space, the second – for close-ups in the taiga, and the third had the ship's interior completely recreated. This model also included a multi-level system of safety nets and suspensions, which were used to simulate weightlessness.
- The filmmakers were only given access to the design of the space equipment. The internal workings of the space technology were classified.
- The scenes in the taiga were filmed in the Perm Krai region, near the settlement of Usva. It was here that filming for the drama "The Geographer Drank His Globe Away" took place in 2013. The main actors did not participate in the expedition. All the scenes in the taiga were shot with wide shots, so stunt doubles were used instead of the actors.
- In the winter of 2016, a film crew flew to the Perm Krai region, near the very place where on March 19, 1965, the Voskhod-2 crew of Belyayev and Leonov landed manually, in an emergency situation. Filming took place in the valley of the Usva River at a temperature of minus 35 degrees Celsius. It took at least an hour and a half to reach the filming location using rock climbing equipment.
- Mironov and Khabensky trained for over a year to prepare for their roles. Both actors spent approximately 4,000 hours in the gym combined.
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