Apollo 18
All actors and roles (10)
Short description
Apollo 18 is a horror and science fiction film presented as a recovered-footage account of a secret lunar mission. Officially, Apollo 17 in 1972 was the last time people walked on the Moon, and the planned Apollo 18 was cancelled. The film supposes that the mission went ahead anyway, funded by the Department of Defense, with three astronauts sent to the lunar surface the following year. The footage they supposedly recorded shows that the trip did not go as planned, and that something found there explains why no one has returned to the Moon since. Gonzalo López-Gallego directed, working from a screenplay by Brian Miller, with Timur Bekmambetov among the producers. The cast includes Ryan Robbins, Warren Christie and Lloyd Owen as the crew, with Andrew Airlie and Michael Kopsa in supporting roles.
Released in 2011, the film was López-Gallego's second feature, following The King of the Hill in 2008. Made for about 5 million dollars, it took roughly 26 million dollars worldwide, a strong return on a small budget. Audience response was muted: on IMDb it holds 5.2/10 from around 60,000 votes, and on TMDB 5.3/10 from just over a thousand. A critics' rating of 4/10 from 75 reviews places it below even those modest audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- One of the early versions of the film featured massive lunar monsters. They are not present in the final cut, but spiders crawling onto the lunar vehicle are briefly shown shortly before the crash.
- The film was shot using cameras with lenses from the 1970s.
- Filming took place from December 20, 2010, to January 14, 2011, in British Columbia.
- As Walker's condition deteriorates, he mutters at one point, "Fate ordained that people who set out peacefully to explore the Moon should rest in peace on the Moon." This is a slightly altered phrase from a statement Richard Nixon was prepared to deliver in the event that the astronauts of Apollo 11 became stranded on the Moon in 1969 with no hope of returning alive.
- As Walker's condition deteriorates, he murmurs at one point the phrase, “Fate decreed that people who set out peacefully to explore the Moon should rest in peace on the Moon.” This is a slightly altered version of a statement that the 37th President of the United States, Richard Nixon (1913-1994), was to deliver had the astronauts of the Apollo 11 spacecraft become stranded on the Moon with no chance of returning alive in 1969.
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