Uncut Gems, Hustle, You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah. Adam Sandler is on a late career hot streak that shows little sign of ending. Next up for the Sandlernaissance is Spaceman, a new Netflix collab which will adapt the 2017 Czech novel Spaceman of Bohemia, which imagines a trip to Venus from the perspective of Jakub Procházka, the Czech Republic’s (fictional) first independent astronaut.
Sandler will portray Procházka, which hopefully won’t involve a questionable accent; looking at the cast and crew around Sandler, we’ll bet on this one being a hit. Swedish director Johan Renck, best known for his work on the hit HBO miniseries Chernobyl, takes up duties behind the camera. And on that cast: it’s Paul Dano! And Carey Mulligan! This is how you win (Oscars)!
Here’s everything we know about Spaceman.
In Spaceman, Adam Sandler will befriend
[checks notes] a giant alien spider
You read that right. In the original book, a lonely Jakub strikes up an unlikely friendship with an extraterrestrial being who takes up residence on his ship. It takes the appearance of a giant spider — though (hopefully) a benevolent one, unlike Pennywise in It.
This tallies up with the official synopsis provided by Netflix:
Arthouse fave Dano — best known for playing the histrionic snake oil salesman Eli Sunday in There Will Be Blood, and more recently starring as a Zodiac-esque Riddler in The Batman — will voice the alien arachnid.
…otherwise, it sounds surprisingly moving
A lot of space movies in recent years have used the genre to explore the human struggles of star-faring: years-long missions, profound loneliness, Earthbound families left to wait with bated breath, etc.
And one of the more notable film trends from the last decade? Sad Dads in Space: Interstellar, Ad Astra, Gravity, First Man. 2019’s Eva Green-starring Proxima, too, if we want to include the moms (it’s a great movie so yes, we do).
It sounds as though Spaceman will be the latest film to tackle the father’s frontier, with Jakub having left his pregnant wife, Lenka (Carey Mulligan) at home. And that’s tear-jerker territory if we’ve ever seen it.
As to whether or not Sandler’s real-life daughters Sadie and Sunny will appear after their starring roles in Bat Mitzvah… well, we’ll just have to wait and see.
Is there a trailer for Spaceman?
Nope, no trailer yet. The movie was originally slated to open in late 2023, but those plans were scuttled by the writers’ and actors’ strikes in Hollywood. Expect promotion — including a first teaser — to kick back in once the labor action is resolved.
When will Spaceman release?
Current word is that we’ll see Spaceman in 2024, with a release window yet to be determined. Again, expect a specific date soon after the actors’ strike comes to an end.