SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO – September 10, 2015 (Gephardt Daily) — New Mexico Film Office Director Nick Maniatis announced today that STX Entertainment’s intergalactic love story “The Space Between Us” will be produced in the state mid-September through the beginning of November in Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Truth or Consequences.
The film is directed by Peter Chelsom (“Serendipity,” “Hector and the Search for Happiness,” “Shall We Dance”) and produced by Richard B. Lewis (“Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,” “August Rush”). The story is based on a treatment written by Stewart Schill with revisions by Richard Lewis and Allan Loeb with a screenplay by Allan Loeb and revisions by Peter Chelsom & Tinker Lindsay.
The film stars Gary Oldman (“The Dark Knight,” “Harry Potter”), Asa Butterfield (“Ender’s Game,” “Hugo”), Carla Gugino (“Wayward Pines,” “Night at the Museum”), Britt Robertson (“Tomorrowland,” “The Longest Ride”), BD Wong (“Jurassic World,” “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit”) and Janet Montgomery (“Black Swan,” “Salem”).
On the benefits of shooting in New Mexico, Oren Aviv, President of STX Entertainment’s Motion Picture Group stated, “We are grateful to the New Mexico Film Office for all of their help facilitating production in their beautiful state.
The New Mexico landscape provides the perfect backdrop to illustrate the sweeping scope of this film. Along with the state-of-the-art facility Spaceport America, we are also thrilled to be filming at a diverse array of iconic New Mexico locations that truly lend an authenticity to both the technical elements of space travel and the rugged terrain that characterizes this story.”
The production will employ at least 100 New Mexico crew members and approximately 30 New Mexico principal actors and an estimated 1,000 local background talent.
Principal photography will commence at Spaceport America, the first purpose-built, commercial spaceport in the world. The FAA licensed launch complex, situated on 18,000 acres adjacent to the U.S. Army White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico, boasts 6,000 square miles of protected airspace, low population density, a 12,000-foot spaceway and 340+ days of sunshine and low humidity.
Two of the most respected companies in the commercial space industry are now tenants at Spaceport America; Virgin Galactic and SpaceX.
“There has been tremendous interest from the Hollywood film industry in renting Spaceport America as a film location. We are excited about ‘The Space Between Us’ being the first major film to use the spaceport and the Virgin Galactic Gateway to Space Building, and we look forward to having more of these kinds of film-location opportunities,” said Tammara Anderton, Spaceport America Director of Marketing
In “The Space Between Us,” a star-crossed modern love story about two teens from different worlds, Gardner Elliot, the first human born on Mars, is secretly raised in an experimental colony after his astronaut mother dies during childbirth.
Sixteen years later, Gardner begins an online romance with a girl living in Colorado and hatches a plan to travel across the universe to meet her. Now, on the run, with Earth’s gravity threatening his very existence, Gardner must race against time and nature to find his love and win her heart.
Once united, the two teens venture to seek out the enigmatic billionaire who funded the original expedition to Mars, in hopes of uncovering information about Gardner’s mother and the mysterious circumstances surrounding how Gardner came into existence.
ABOUT STX ENTERTAINMENT
STX Entertainment is a fully-integrated motion picture and television studio specializing in the production, marketing, and distribution of talent-driven films and television programming. It is the first major studio to be launched at this scale in Hollywood in more than twenty years.
STX Entertainment recently released their first feature film, the critically-acclaimed box office success “The Gift” which will be followed by upcoming releases “Secret in Their Eyes,” written and directed by Billy Ray and starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Nicole Kidman and Julia Roberts; “The Boy,” a horror film from director William Brent Bell (“The Devil Inside”), written by Stacey Menear and starring Lauren Cohan (“The Walking Dead”); and epic action-drama “The Free State of Jones,” starring Matthew McConaughey, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Keri Russell and Mahershala Ali from writer-director and 4-time Academy Award nominee Gary Ross.
In addition to “The Space Between Us,” STX has two films set to start production this fall, with five films in active pre-production.
For more information about the studio, please visit stxentertainment.com.
