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'Apollo 11' Film to Show First Moon Landing Like Never Before

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'Apollo 11' Film Image
Todd Douglas Miller's cinematic space event documentary, "Apollo 11," features never-before-seen, large-format film footage of one of humanity's greatest accomplishments. (Image credit: Statement Pictures/NEON/CNN Films via collectSPACE.com)

A new cinematic space event film promises to show audiences the historic Apollo 11 first moon landing mission like they have never seen before.

"Apollo 11," from director Todd Douglas Miller, will feature never-before-seen large-format film footage of the 1969 mission that landed astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the surface of the moon. The feature-length documentary is executive produced by CNN Films and produced by Miller's Statement Pictures.

NEON, which released the Academy Award-winning "I, Tonya," has acquired the worldwide distribution rights to "Apollo 11," now in post-production. CNN Films retains the U.S. television rights. [NASA's Historic Apollo 11 Moon Landing in Pictures]

A 30-second teaser for "Apollo 11" released today (July 20), 49 years to the day after the first moon landing, shows archival, wide-format footage of the rollout of Apollo 11's Saturn V rocket and scenes of Armstrong, Aldrin and Michael Collins being suited up for the mission. The visuals are matched to the final moments of NASA's commentary counting down to the Apollo 11 launch.

The clip ends with the ignition of the massive booster, cutting off just before liftoff.

A release date for "Apollo 11" has not yet been announced.

Miller's previous credits include the Emmy Award-winning documentary "Dinosaur 13," about the discovery of the largest Tyrannosaurus rex fossil ever found.

Miller also directed the 2016 short film "The Last Steps," produced by CNN Films and Great Big Story, about the final Apollo mission to land humans on the moon. The cinema-direct "Last Steps" used only archival footage, photography and audio to recreate the journey of the Apollo 17 crew, Eugene Cernan, Harrison Schmitt and Ron Evans, in December 1972.

Apollo 11, the mission, will mark its 50th anniversary from July 16 through July 24, 2019. The film, "Apollo 11," bills itself as "50 years in the making."

See the 30-second teaser for Todd Douglas Miller's "Apollo 11" at collectSPACE.

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Robert Z. Pearlman
Robert Z. Pearlman
collectSPACE.com Editor, Space.com Contributor

Robert Pearlman is a space historian, journalist and the founder and editor of collectSPACE.com, an online publication and community devoted to space history with a particular focus on how and where space exploration intersects with pop culture. Pearlman is also a contributing writer for Space.com and co-author of "Space Stations: The Art, Science, and Reality of Working in Space” published by Smithsonian Books in 2018. He previously developed online content for the National Space Society and Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin, helped establish the space tourism company Space Adventures and currently serves on the History Committee of the American Astronautical Society, the advisory committee for The Mars Generation and leadership board of For All Moonkind. In 2009, he was inducted into the U.S. Space Camp Hall of Fame in Huntsville, Alabama. In 2021, he was honored by the American Astronautical Society with the Ordway Award for Sustained Excellence in Spaceflight History.