Netflix, George Clooney go to post-apocalyptic space with first look at 'The Midnight Sky'

George Clooney's sci-fi epic The Midnight Sky (formerly known as Good Morning, Midnight, like the Lily Brooks-Dalton book it's based on) is finally letting fans get a glimpse at what the actor/director has cooked up for Netflix. The film tracks a scientist (Clooney) and a young girl (Caoilinn Springall), the last survivors of an extinction-level event on Earth in 2049, trying to prevent a group of astronauts — Felicity Jones, David Oleyowo, Tiffany Boone, Kyle Chandler, and Demián Bichir — from coming back to their empty, dangerous planet. Now Clooney's showing off his post-Gravity space career.

Vanity Fair spoke with Clooney, who explained that the film is a mix between the aforementioned Alfonso Cuaron sci-fi and The Revenant — the latter of which contributed its screenwriter, Mark L. Smith, and intense survival feel to The Midnight Sky.  That's because Clooney and Springall need to venture across the blighted, toxic world to actually get somewhere where they can talk to the astronauts. Part space adventure, part wanting-to-talk-to-space adventure.  The images, focused on the astronauts, do feel a bit Gravity-esque. 

“One of the things that I learned from working with Alfonso about space is, once you’re in the antigravity kind of world, there is no north  and south or east or west, because it doesn’t exist in space. Up isn’t up, and down isn’t down,” Clooney said. “So the camera can be upside down, characters can be upside down, and it’s hard to do, because you’re constantly rotating the camera, and hoping you’re not doing it so much you make everybody sick. Alfonso did it just beautifully.”

Sweeping space landscapes, face-emphasizing spacesuits, and a stark tone dominate the film's first look — though everything remains right-side up for now.   

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Speaking of his planetary disaster, Clooney explained that it's only become more relevant since they shot. “I mean, the picture we show of Earth doesn’t look that much different than the satellite pictures of the West Coast right now," Clooney said. "It’s science fiction, which unfortunately is less fictional as we move through the days.” 

The Midnight Sky looks to hit Netflix this December.