Exclusive: Moon director remembers Sam Rockwell's casting in 10th anniversary release

Sci-fi indie darling Moon kick-started Duncan Jones’ directorial career while giving star Sam Rockwell a killer genre role that also worked as a tour-de-force acting reel. The film — about clones, moon mining, and loneliness — was a one-man show that turned into one of the most inventive and beloved sci-fi films of the last decade. Now that the film is approaching its 10-year anniversary, it’s getting its own remastered re-release.

Newly in 4K with HDR and remixed with Dolby Atmos audio, the film is also stuffed with bonus features including new deleted scenes, a poster gallery, commentaries, Q&As, and Jones’ short film Whistle. There’s also a brand new retrospective conversation with Jones where he talks about getting the film off the ground.

Jones knew that landing a big name for his first feature would determine whether anyone saw the movie or not, so getting Rockwell on board was paramount. Now, in a video interview from the anniversary release that SYFY WIRE can exclusively share, Jones explained how it all went down.

Take a look:

Jones mentions Mute in the video, which, along with the video game adaptation Warcraft, were his genre follow-ups to Moon’s success.

The script for Mute (which came before Moon) actually got sent to Rockwell, who liked it enough for the pair to meet up. But Rockwell wanted more from a role than a simple villain and gave Jones the challenge of attracting him through writing — and Moon’s Sam Bell (along with all the other Sam Bells) certainly gave him a role worth playing.

Moon’s 4K Ultra HD re-release comes out on July 16.