'Gravity' Drops into Stores, Beams to Space Station
"Gravity" has landed in stores, and launched into space.
Director Alfonso Cuarón's award-winning 3D space thriller starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney was released on DVD and Blu-ray on Tuesday (Feb. 25). Meanwhile, the movie, which prominently features the International Space Station (ISS), arrived onboard the real orbiting outpost this week, too.
"I am watching the movie 'Gravity' up here on ISS," NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio shared from the space station on Sunday. [See photos from the film "Gravity"]
"Let's call it training," he joked in his post on Twitter.
Mastracchio's copy of the movie was uplinked by NASA's Mission Control in Houston. For the Earth-bound masses, the film is available in digital HD and as multi-disc sets.
Warner Bros. Entertainment is offering "Gravity" in three versions: a two-disc DVD set, a two-disc Blu-ray and DVD set, and a three-disc 3D Blu-ray, Blu-ray and DVD set. All three include a redemption code for a digital version of the movie as well.
The sets list for $28.98, $35.99 and $44.95, respectively.
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The Blu-ray packages feature the "Gravity" poster art on their covers. The DVD set uses a film still showing Sandra Bullock floating just inside the hatch of the space station.
All three sets include the 90-minute movie, which follows the troubled journey of first-time astronaut Dr. Ryan Stone (Bullock) as she and veteran commander Matt Kowalsky (Clooney) struggle to survive in open space after a debris collision destroys their shuttle.
The Blu-ray versions also include five "shot breakdowns" and nine "Gravity: Mission Control" featurettes, as well as a "Silent Space" version of the film, the 22-minute special "Collision Point: The Race to Clean Up Space" narrated by Ed Harris, and a featurette titled "Sandra's Surprise!"
The sets' special features are rounded out by "Aningaaq," a seven-minute short film written and directed by Jonás Cuarón, Alfonso's son and "Gravity" co-writer. "Aningaaq" reveals the other side of Dr. Ryan Stone's distress call as shown in the movie.
The DVD-only version includes the shot breakdowns and Mission Control features, "Aningaaq" and "Collision Point."
"Gravity" has been pulling in awards since the start of the year, including Best Picture from the Producers Guild of America and the Golden Globe for Best Director. The film was also named Best British Film by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and it has won seven Critics' Choice awards, including Best Director and Best Actress.
The film, which was advised by veteran NASA astronauts, including Cady Coleman while she was living onboard the International Space Station, has been highly praised for its detailed digital depictions of spacecraft and of outer space itself, as well as its recreation of weightlessness.
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Robert Pearlman is a space historian, journalist and the founder and editor of collectSPACE.com, an online publication and community devoted to space history with a particular focus on how and where space exploration intersects with pop culture. Pearlman is also a contributing writer for Space.com and co-author of "Space Stations: The Art, Science, and Reality of Working in Space” published by Smithsonian Books in 2018. He previously developed online content for the National Space Society and Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin, helped establish the space tourism company Space Adventures and currently serves on the History Committee of the American Astronautical Society, the advisory committee for The Mars Generation and leadership board of For All Moonkind. In 2009, he was inducted into the U.S. Space Camp Hall of Fame in Huntsville, Alabama. In 2021, he was honored by the American Astronautical Society with the Ordway Award for Sustained Excellence in Spaceflight History.