Apollo 18 (film)
| Apollo 18 | |
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Official film poster
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| Directed by | Gonzalo López-Gallego |
| Produced by |
Timur Bekmambetov Ron Schmidt |
| Written by | Brian Miller |
| Starring |
Warren Christie Lloyd Owen Ryan Robbins |
| Cinematography | José David Montero |
| Edited by | Patrick Lussier |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | Dimension Films |
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Release date
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Running time
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86 minutes |
| Country | United States Canada |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $5 million |
| Box office | $25.5 million |
Apollo 18 is a 2011 American-Canadian science fiction horror film written by Brian Miller, directed by Gonzalo López-Gallego, and produced by Timur Bekmambetov and Ron Schmidt. After various release date changes, the film was released in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada on September 2, 2011; however, the release dates for other territories vary. The film is López-Gallego's first English-language movie.
The film's premise is that the cancelled Apollo 18 mission actually landed on the moon in December 1974 but never returned, and as a result the United States has never launched another expedition to the Moon. The film is shot in found-footage style, supposedly the lost footage of the Apollo 18 mission that was only recently discovered.
James A. Michener's novel Space, published in 1982, also dealt with a fictional Apollo 18 mission that ended in disaster.
In December 1974, the crew of the cancelled Apollo 18 mission is informed that it will now proceed as a top secret Department of Defense (DoD) mission disguised as a satellite launch. Commander Nathan Walker, Lieutenant Colonel John Grey, and Captain Ben Anderson are launched toward the Moon to place detectors to alert the United States of any impending ICBM attacks from the USSR.
Grey remains in orbit aboard the Freedom command module while Walker and Anderson land on the moon in the lunar module Liberty. While planting one of the detectors, the pair take moon rock samples. After returning to Liberty, the pair hear noises outside and a camera captures a small rock moving nearby. Houston claims the noises are interference from the ICBM detectors. Anderson finds a rock sample on the floor of Liberty despite having secured the samples. During further lunar exploration they discover footprints that lead them to a bloodstained, functioning Soviet LK lander, and a dead cosmonaut in a nearby crater. Walker queries Houston about the Soviet presence, but he is told only to continue with the mission.
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