Space Cowboys
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Clint Eastwood |
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| Written by |
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| Starring | |
| Music by | Lennie Niehaus |
| Cinematography | Jack N. Green |
| Edited by | Joel Cox |
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Production
companies |
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| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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130 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $60 million |
| Box office | $128.9 million |
Space Cowboys is a 2000 American space disaster drama film directed and produced by Clint Eastwood. It stars Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland, and James Garner as four older "ex-test pilots" who are sent into space to repair an old Soviet satellite.
In 1958, two U.S. Air Force pilots and aspiring astronauts, William "Hawk" Hawkins (Tommy Lee Jones) and Frank Corvin (Clint Eastwood), are testing a modified X-plane when Hawk decides to try to break a height record. The plane stalls and they are forced to eject, narrowly missing a B-50 Superfortress piloted by navigator "Tank" Sullivan (James Garner) as they parachute to safety. On the ground, Frank punches Hawk for putting their lives at risk, but their fight is broken up by engineer Jerry O'Neill (Donald Sutherland). Their supervising officer, Bob Gerson (James Cromwell), chastises Hawk for his recklessness, before taking them to a press conference, where it is announced that the Air Force will no longer be involved in space flight tests as this has now been handed off to the newly created NASA, ending the four's dreams of reaching space.
In the present day, NASA is tasked to prevent a Soviet communications satellite, IKON, from decaying out of orbit and crashing to earth. The design of the satellite's electronics are archaic and based on those of Skylab that Frank had developed. Bob, now a project manager at NASA, sends astronaut Sara Holland (Marcia Gay Harden) to request Frank's help. Frank is initially hostile as he still despises Bob, but agrees to put aside his differences to help with the current situation. However, Frank insists that he have the help of his "Team Daedalus" including Hawk, Tank, and Jerry. Bob agrees to this, though discreetly plans to have younger astronauts shadow the four and learn from them so as to replace Frank's team before launch. When the press learn of Frank's team, however, the Vice President convinces Bob that Frank's team must be part of the mission for good publicity. The old and young teams, though initially competitive, soon work together, with the older astronauts showing off skills learned without the aid of a computer. As they train and undergo examinations, Hawk is found to have pancreatic cancer and given only eight months to live, but is still considered flight-worthy.
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