‘Passengers’ Film Updates: Director Praises Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Pratt as Lovers Suspended in Space; First Official Photographs Released

‘Passengers’ director Morten Tyldum praised his leading stars’ performance on the upcoming film. Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt play lovers suspended in space. First photographs have recently been released.

During an interview with Entertainment Weekly, director Morten Tyldum expressed praise for Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt’s hard work on the set of the upcoming science-fiction and thriller film written for the big screen by Jon Spaihts.

Tyldum said, “I honestly couldn’t ask for a better cast. They’re so great together, and both of them are so hard-working. They take the characters so seriously and bring so much to the roles with charm and intelligence and charisma. They really went for it and it is phenomenal to watch.”

Lawrence and Pratt play two people aboard a spacecraft traveling to a distant colony planet along with some 5,000 other passengers. However, they are awakened decades too early before they reach their destination. Lawrence is New York writer Aurora Dunn and Pratt is mechanic Jim Preston.

Aurora and Jim fall in love but need to find a way to save the themselves and the other passengers after finding that the spacecraft they’re on is malfunctioning.

Tyldum continued, “You will laugh and cry and hold your breath and be at the edge of your seat. It has chills. It also will make you smile and laugh a lot. We wanted a playful movie.”

He added, “And if you have Chris and Jen it’s impossible not to have — they’ve come up with a lot of stuff on set. They’re both extremely funny. They’d try this and that and come up with really funny stuff. They can go very dramatic but their great chemistry – they’re just so good. It is just fun to be around them and fun to be on this journey. In this day of sequels and reboots I think it’s refreshing that it is a completely original story with two of the best movie stars in the world. I’m very, very happy with the movie.”

Tyldum is best known for his critically-acclaimed thriller films such as the 2011 action-thriller film ‘Headhunters’ starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Aksel Hennie as well as his 2014 drama-thriller film ‘The Imitation Game’ starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, and Matthew Goode. Tyldum was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director for the latter.

New photographs for the upcoming film have recently been released by Sony. The photographs, posted on Screen Crush, featured Lawrence and Pratt in their spacecraft and also revealed the first look at Pratt in his modernistic spacesuit.

‘Passengers’ is an upcoming science-fiction and thriller film scheduled to be released on December 21, 2016. It is directed by Morten Tyldum and written by Jon Spaihts. It is produced by Stephen Hamel, Michael Maher, Ori Marmur, and Neal H. Mortiz and executive produced by Lynwood Spinks.