Astronaut traveling to Titan loses his grip on reality in 1st 'Slingshot' trailer (video)

Slingshot | Official Trailer | Bleecker Street - YouTube Slingshot | Official Trailer | Bleecker Street - YouTube
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It seems that acclaimed actor Laurence Fishburne ("The Matrix") has some uncanny attraction to sci-fi projects centered around doomed spaceships, having co-starred in 2016's "Passengers" and the 1997 cult classic, "Event Horizon." 

Now he's sharing the screen with the Academy Award-winning Casey Affleck ("Manchester By the Sea") and Tomer Capone ("The Boys") in Bleecker Street's upcoming outer space thriller, "Slingshot," and we've got the first full trailer to share to prove our point. 

The basic plot revolves around a harrowing 1.5-billion-mile trek to Saturn's moon Titan and one astronaut's inability to distinguish nightmares from real-life due to the side effects of a drug meant to induce hibernation sleep for the long haul.

"Slingshot" arrives in theaters on Aug. 30, 2024 as perhaps a bit of a sleeper hit in the late summer box office bonanza, and with Swedish director Mikael Håfström at the helm this has all the makings of a future sci-fi classic. 

The official poster for Bleecker Street's "Slingshot." (Image credit: Bleecker Street)

Directed by Håfström ("The Rite," "1408") from a screenplay by R. Scott Adams ("Donner Pass") and Nathan Parker ("Moon"), this riveting production also stars Emily Beecham ("Cruella") and David Morrissey ("The Colour Room," "The Walking Dead").

Check out the official synopsis:

"A psychological thriller starring Casey Affleck and Laurence Fishburne, 'Slingshot' follows an elite trio of astronauts aboard a years-long, possibly compromised mission to Saturn's moon Titan. As the team gears up for a highly dangerous slingshot maneuver that will either catapult them to Titan or into deep space, it becomes increasingly difficult for one astronaut to maintain his grip on reality." 

As seen in this trippy trailer, Affleck's unhinged character is not dealing with the extreme mental rigors of the mission very well and is hallucinating heavily as the Odyssey 1 spacecraft prepares to whip around Jupiter to provide the craft with a super speed boost necessary to properly reach the moon of Titan. 

Laurence Fishburne, Casey Affleck, and Tomer Capone star in "Slingshot." (Image credit: Bleecker Street)

"Slingshot" was mostly filmed at Korda Studios in Budapest, Hungary and was produced by Richard Saperstein, Istvan Major, and Beau Turpin. Ivett Havasi, Shara Kay, Michael Hollingsworth, Tom Nohstadt, Ron Cundy, Nikolett Barabás, Jonathan Krauss, Brooklyn Weaver and Joanna Plafsky serve as the film's executive producers. 

Bleecker Street's "Slingshot" streaks into theaters on Aug. 30, 2024.

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Jeff Spry
Contributing Writer

Jeff Spry is an award-winning screenwriter and veteran freelance journalist covering TV, movies, video games, books, and comics. His work has appeared at SYFY Wire, Inverse, Collider, Bleeding Cool and elsewhere. Jeff lives in beautiful Bend, Oregon amid the ponderosa pines, classic muscle cars, a crypt of collector horror comics, and two loyal English Setters.

  • fogdart
    I sincerely hope the bombastic music is only in the trailer and not the film. Why such overpowering mid-20th century aesthetics?
    Reply