It’s not often a film with a pretty good cast can shoot and we only hear about it when production has wrapped, but that’s what’s happened with Space Station 76, according to THR. The likes of Patrick Wilson, Liv Tyler, Marisa Coughlan, Matt Bomer, Jerry O’Connell, Kali Rocha and Kylie Rogers all headed for the set, to star in this homage to 70s sci-fi.
Jack Plotnick wrote and directed the movie. Plotnick is best known as an actor, who’s popped up in all sorts of things, from Meet The Fockers and Buffy to Reno 911! and Gods & Monsters. However he’s also built up a reputation as a playwright and as an acting coach, which helped him build the impressive cast for his movie. Despite the sci-fi approach, the film started out as a play that uses the the space station as a metaphor for his life growing up in 1970s suburbia.
Described as being set in a 1970s version of the future, Liv Tyler plays a new assistant captain whose arrival causes tension amongst the crew, while Patrick Wilson is the bitter and suicidal captain. Bomer is a technician with a robotic hand who is married to a manipulative woman, played by Marisa Coughlan. While Plotnick is gay, it isn’t clear if there are any gay characters in the movie.
Plotnick says, “People think that the 1970s were about the discos and the free love, but in the suburbs you were left feeling, ‘Where’s the party?’ So the emotional story is what I felt in the ’70s. My parents weren’t happy together and they stuck it out for the kids. It’s an homage to them. And in one way, I think we’re like these solitary ships in space trying to connect.”