Michael says, “There is an element to the one liner, ‘A man builds a rocket,’ and you could live on that if you wanted to go down that path. It was (however) important to us to pick a time in American history where the Mercury Atlas rocket captured the nation’s imagination and the seven astronauts that were going to orbit the earth. That to us was exciting and not being of that generation, we really went into the details of how that was going to happen. What was it going to take, what vessel and what fuel. We used as many resources as we could to make this believable. We dived into it. What gets me inspired is learning about the subject matter that we want to explore.”

 

While some may argue that parts of this film may constitute fantasy, the brothers did their homework and the technical aspects of Charles Farmer’s endeavor have been well researched. “We wrote the initial draft with enough information to know where the launch and the re-entry would be. When we went into the second draft and really started sculpting the story, we started listening to a lot of the archival transcripts of the astronauts and that was fascinating. It was probably some of the most inspirational stuff to listen to astronauts talk back to mission control,” says Michael.

 

“You could really see through their communication what they were viewing as astronauts and we really wanted to convey that in the movie,” adds Mark. 

 

The movie also contains a symbolic nod to Alan B. Shepard, Jr. the first American launched into space on May 5, 1961. The name of Charles Farmer’s fifteen-year-old son is Shepard (Max Thieriot). The symbolism was intentional says Mark, “We wanted the first born to be one of the first men to orbit.”

 

Shepard is equally involved in his father’s enterprise acting as mission control and a budding engineer. Just as the Polish brothers’ father involved them in his endeavors so the theme continues in the movie. 

 

Bruce Dern was cast in the role of Audie Farmer’s father, while Michael Polish’s seven-year-old daughter Jasper plays the Farmers’ middle child (Stanley). Stanley derives her name from Stanley Kubrick. Mark Polish’s four-year-old daughter Logan makes her film debut as the youngest Farmer child, Sunshine.

 

The movie, which will be released as Warner Bros. Pictures presents a Spring Creek Pictures Production, a Polish Brothers Construction Production, was filmed in New Mexico due to favorable rebates made available by the state. 

Moviegoers can view a trailer for The Astronaut Farmer at http://theastronautfarmermovie.warnerbros.com

 

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