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Roscosmos Will Shoot First Movie in Space, Not Tom Cruise

Russia has edged out Tom Cruise, SpaceX, and NASA in the race to be the first to shoot a movie in space. Mark your calendars for October 5, 2021.
Yulia Peresild will become the first actor to shoot a movie in space 1 photo
Photo: Roscosmos
Last year, in what became the most surprising and possibly awesome movie-related piece of news, it was announced that Tom Cruise was heading out to space to film his next movie. Though initially believed to be a joke, the news was confirmed by SpaceX and NASA, with details following soon.

Tom Cruise, director Doug Liman, and a yet unknown female actress would become the trio to write movie history. Cruise would be the first actor in space, and it was said that he had invested some of his own money to make sure it happened.

Clearly, a project of this kind doesn’t come without massive financial backing, and Cruise, as a producer on most of his projects, is probably accustomed to investing in them as well. Space insurance was one of the earliest challenges, Liman explained a while back.

While Cruise & Co. have been toiling to make this happen, Russia quietly stole his crown. Roscosmos announces that the quest for an actress and director for its space movie has ended. The finalists are Yulia Peresild and Klim Shipenko, and the movie they’ll be shooting on the International Space Station (ISS) is called Challenge. It’s about a female surgeon having to fly to space to operate on an astronaut.

On October 5, 2021, Peresild and Shipenko, with their backups and an actual astronaut, will take off from the Baikonur cosmodrome. They have already passed medical reviews and will start training on June 1, including “centrifuge and vibration tests, flights on a zero-gravity plane and parachute training.”

According to Roscosmos, Challenge is part of a bigger educational program that will highlight how spaceflight and space exploration are becoming more accessible to people outside of the field. Channel One will document the process.

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About the author: Elena Gorgan
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Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends.
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