James Gray’s forthcoming sci-fi daddy drama Ad Astra got a new trailer on Thursday morning. Where the first trailer was a bit heavier on plot exposition and table setting, this one’s much more of the tone poem-style filmmaking we’ve come to expect from the perpetually Palme d’Or-nominated director behind 2016’s The Lost City of Z.
Brad Pitt stars in Ad Astra as astronaut Roy McBride, who is on a quest to find his missing father (Tommy Lee Jones, growling and distant as always). Per the film’s synopsis, Pitt will “unravel a mystery that threatens the survival of our planet” and “uncover secrets that challenge the nature of human existence and our place in the cosmos.”
The trailer showcases Gray’s proclivity toward heavily saturated color schemes and pristinely calibrated framing. In one particularly beautiful shot, a spaceship outpaces a pure-white explosion; in the next, Pitt pulls a gun while riding a rover on the moon. Max Richter’s sublime violin playing plays underneath it all, amounting to a stunning taste of the inbound arthouse adventure. (Ad Astra also features additional music by Lorne Balfe.)
Other members of the cast of Ad Astra include Ruth Negga, Liv Tyler and Donald Sutherland. The film is due out on Sept. 20. Watch the new trailer below, then revisit the first one here.
