The Weinstein Company Acquires Apollo 18

The Weinstein Company has acquired Apollo 18, the sci-fi thriller based on the screenplay by Brian Miller, winner of the inaugural Astana International Action Film Festival screenplay competition, founded by Wanted director Timur Bekmambetov. Trevor Cawood is set to direct the project.

Bekmambetov and Michele Wolkoff, President of Development for Bekmambetov Projects Ltd. (BPL) will produce the film.

Set to be shot documentary style, the film unearths lost footage from Apollo 18's undocumented and covert mission to the moon, revealing disturbing new evidence of other life forms.

Bekmambetov announced the contest this spring, in conjunction with Kazakhstan's first film festival held in Astana, Kazakhstan July 27-July 1, 2010. Five finalists from the United States, France, Kazakhstan, and the UK attended the film festival, which was a celebration of international action films. As part of the competition, Miller was awarded a cash prize and a development deal with BPL.

The film is slated to begin production this December for a March release date.




Read more: The Weinstein Company Acquires Apollo 18 - ComingSoon.net www.comingsoon.net...

and how is this related to UFOs?

reply to post by Turbohale


Well lets hope the Weinstein Company can make the moon landings a bit more realistic than NASA did.
2nd

Originally posted by toreishi
and how is this related to UFOs?

You're in the "Aliens and UFO's" section of ATS

The thread is about a film dealing with a covert Apollo 18 mission to the moon where "other life forms" (Aliens) are discovered.

There's your alien connection and I bet it's safe to say some UFO's will make an appearance in the film.

How much of the OP did you actually read before posting that?

I am quite excited for this film. Apparently, its planned to be released on March 4th 2011. Production will begin this Decmber.

The film is based on the idea that the Apollo 18 moon mission, officially canceled by NASA, actually took place and led to an encounter with extraterrestrials on the moon. Part of what sold the Weinsteins on the film was footage shown by Timur Bekmambetov representing film supposedly shot by the Apollo 18 astronauts.

Source

In a press release announcing Apollo 18, Harvey Weinstein said, "We first became aware of Timur after his 2004 film Night Watch. Recently he came to us with this never-before-seen footage, apparently of the Apollo 18 space mission, and, as filmmakers, we were absolutely compelled to bring it to the screen for audiences to judge for themselves."

Source 2

My god, folks. We've got ourselves a conspiracy brewing here . I cannot wait to watch this film. Hopefully it won't get delayed and it will be the best early birthday gift for me ever.

Excuse me for the double post. But this needs its own post.

"A quintessential Cold War story, Apollo 18 casts light on the covert and undocumented lunar mission that officially 'never happened.' Bekmambetov, hired by Russia to shoot a documentary about the Russian space station, recently came across footage in its space archives that bolsters the idea that an Apollo 18 mission did, in fact, take place, and reveals startling evidence of extraterrestrial life forms. This actual footage will be part of Apollo 18, a paranormal thriller that will interpolate fact and fiction."

Source

"Produced by Quinten Tarantino" would make the movie even better!

2nd.

reply to post by nightmare_david


i truly didn't realize that we can post movie/entertainment-based material on the alien & ufo forum. i thought that was what the movies subsection on belowtopsecret was for.

I'm sure this will be an entertaining film, but I doubt it has anything to do with an sort of organized conspiracy.

I think a lot of folks confuse good old fashioned capitalism with conspiracy. UFO/Alien movies always do well at the box office or in the aftermarket. That alone is enough reason to make more of them. The need to assign an ultra-secret cabal of "those in the know" that are slowly controlling the release of information via Hollywood movies is a very hard pill for most realistic thinkers.

Can anyone here give me solid reason why they think this has something to do with aliens/ufo conspiracy? Also, if you could, care to elaborate on the mechanism you think is in place in order for something like this to get "dribbled out to the masses"? Keep in mind the process by which movies are thought of, produced and distributed. It is a little more involved than some secret dude sitting in an office telling so and so to make a movie about this.
Also, if this movie is adding to the pile of stuff they are slowly allowing us to know, how much longer? Sci-Fi has been huge for decade, how much longer will they ease us with this?!?!?!?

Originally posted by IgnoreTheFacts
Also, if this movie is adding to the pile of stuff they are slowly allowing us to know, how much longer? Sci-Fi has been huge for decade, how much longer will they ease us with this?!?!?!?

Also, can anyone point to a time in the history of the modern-mass-media where the government has prepared us for any other sort of disclosure in such a manner?

reply to post by IgnoreTheFacts


Excellent marketing . They are taking advantage of an "internet thang";They have an audience already in the seats chomping at the bit.. Seriously I doubt anyone who has not spent a pants load of time cruising ufo stuff on the 'net even knows what the "apollo18 lore(story)" is. As demonstrated by one of the posts above:fwiw IMHO the story is bunk; bunk y'all can believe whatever you like.

Why is this allowed in the UFO + Aliens subforum when my Paul thread was moved to BTS movies subsection?

It tackles the same concepts.

Looking forward to an answer to this.

-m0r

I hope that people here realize that the purported "found footage" is not real.
The footage of Apollo 18 in this film is just fiction set in a documentary style, like Blair Witch and Paranormal State.

The producers are being a bit cheeky in the way they sometimes make it sound as if it's real (like the Blair Witch producers did), but that's just their viral marketing campaign. It sounds as if this could be an entertaining scifi thriller if done well, but let's not be fooled into thinking this will be a "real" documentary.

It's being called a science fiction thriller for a reason.

Sounds like a great movie from production the theaters in less than 4 months. Or is it going to be on You Tube??

reply to post by mikellmikell

....movie from production the theaters in less than 4 months.

You noticed that too.

Yeah, "great" movie. Four months??? Must be either a mistake (typo) or else it's just going to be schlock, a money-mill. Some indies might get away with that sort of thing, but this kind of film? Heavy on CGI, I will presume....takes more than four months, in Hollywood.

Oh, and yes....pure FICTION. There was no "Apollo 18", "19" nor "20". In fact the hardware that was built, before the U.S. Congress pulled the funds for launching the missions was re-tasked....the Apollo-Soyuz flight, and another Apollo Command Service Module combination, launched on a Satrun 1B, took three Astronauts again to LEO to rendezvous with Skylab...all in the 1970s.

Launching big Saturn V rockets is NOT going to be done "in secret", in any way, shape or form....not even the smaller Saturn 1B, either. And, that won't get any payload to the Moon, anyhow.....

This Apollo 18 story was floated out there awhile ago. Fan fiction, similar to the MJ-12 docs and project Serpo. Hopefully entertaining, but not meant to be taken seriously. I'm pretty sure the story goes that the Russian team leader is real life cosmonaut and 1st man to spacewalk, Alexei Leonov, leading the Russians. Doubt they'll use his name, but it could be a fun film.

Saw this and thought you might like:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/0e2e57b93522.jpg[/atsimg]

Apollo-18 poster just released:

vesti.kz...

Movie date: 3.4.11

That's a cool poster.

reply to post by FOXMULDER147


Did you notice the Russian symbol and writing on the upper left? I can't make out the other stuff on the thing.