The moment of truth has arrived: Will "Gravity" pull in Oscar gold, or will those who worked on the science fiction movie go home empty handed?
"Gravity" is nominated for 10 different Academy Awards including best picture and best director. The Oscars are set to air tonight (March 2) with red carpet arrival coverage beginning at 7 p.m. EST (0000 March 3 GMT), and you can follow along with Space.com's live Oscar updates focusing on everything "Gravity" related at the Academy Awards.
"With 10 nominations, I think that 'Gravity' is sure to pull in at least an Oscar or two," said Robert Pearlman, editor of the space history website collectSPACE.com and a Space.com contributor. "The film has been praised for its special effects, its score and direction, but is also considered a strong contender for best picture. If it does take the top prize, it will make history as the first science fiction film to win the category." [See amazing photos from the movie "Gravity"]
The movie tells the fictional tale of two astronauts (played by Sandra Bullock and George Clooney) stranded in space after their space shuttle is destroyed during a mission in the not-too-distant future. Fast-moving space junk continues to hurtle around Earth as the two NASA astronauts try to make their way to the International Space Station.
Director Alfonso Cuarón paid particular attention to the details of "Gravity's" spacecraft when making the movie.
"Since I was a kid, I followed space exploration because I am from the generation who saw the man stepping on the moon for the first time," Cuarón told collectSPACE.com. "So for me that whole idea of doing the setting in space and honor what is in there, not trying to invent, that was the thing."
"It took a lot of education for the animators to fully grasp that the usual laws of cause and effect don’t apply," Cuarón said in a press statement in 2013. "In outer space, there is no up; there is no down."
"Gravity's" Oscar nominations include Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress in a leading role (Bullock), Best Original Score (Stephen Price), Best Cinematography (Emmanuel Lubezki), Best Film Editing (Cuarón and Mark Sanger), Best Visual Effects (Tim Webber, Chris Lawrence, Dave Shirk and Neil Corbould), Best Sound Editing (Glenn Freemantle), Best Sound Mixing (Skip Lievsay, Niv Adiri, Christopher Benstead and Chris Munro) and Best Production Design.
"Gravity" is not the only science fiction film in the Oscar running this year. "Star Trek Into Darkness," the sequel to director J.J. Abrams' 2009 Trek reboot film, is nominated in the Best Visual Effects category (Roger Guyett, Patrick Tubach, Ben Grossman and Burt Dalton).
Follow Miriam Kramer @mirikramer and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
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