Netflix released a brand new trailer for The Midnight Sky today, and in it we get to see a bit more about what to expect from the upcoming post-apocalyptic sci-fi drama as well as a release date.
The Midnight Sky is the story of a lone arctic researcher (George Clooney) who is determined to stop an incoming space exploration team from returning to Earth after an unknown global catastrophe wiped mostly everyone out.
The astronaut team is led by Sully (Star Wars: Rogue One‘s Felicity Jones) who Clooney’s character (Augustine) tries to communicate with regarding the team’s options. Both sides seem to have no luck reaching the other, which inspires Augustine to seek out a bigger and better communication antenna further into the arctic tundra.
In this first trailer, we get a few more pieces of the plot puzzle, with a couple extra mysteries thrown in to keep us excited. It starts off with Augustine reaching out to Sully’s team while an unknown and unexplained little girl watches on. The girl has no speaking parts in the trailer and is seen wearing an odd Little-House-on-the-Prairie dress. Is this his daughter? Is she part of his imagination? We don’t know yet.
Meanwhile, the astronauts are puzzled as to why they have received no communication with Earth for three weeks. “Why is it so quiet?” wonders Adewole, played by David Oyelowo.
The global catastrophe itself is quite a mystery, but we do get one hint in this trailer. “I don’t know all the details,” Augustine says as the screen is filled with a map and statistics about global casualties. “It started with a mistake.” We then see a creepy bird-like animal convulsing in the snow next to several others that appear to already be dead.
But we do get a glimmer of hope. It seems that Augustine has an idea about how to use Sully’s team to seek greener pastures, so to speak. “In our galaxy alone, there are billions of stars,” Augustine muses. “At least one of them has the potential to support life.”
The Midnight Sky is based on the 2016 best-selling novel Good Morning, Midnight by Lily Brooks-Dalton. Clooney will not only star in the film, but also direct and produce. It’s one of the few movies that ended filming just before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down production of most movies worldwide in March.
The Midnight Sky will release on both Netflix and in select theaters on December 23, 2020.
