25 amazing facts about the movie “The Martian”! (List)

You can read them in the following list: 1. The Martian is a 2015 American science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon.

2. Damon stars as an astronaut who is mistakenly presumed dead and left behind on Mars. The film depicts his struggle to survive and others’ efforts to rescue him.

3. Filming began in November 2014 and lasted approximately 70 days.

4. Producer Simon Kinberg began developing the film after 20th Century Fox optioned the novel in March 2013. Drew Goddard adapted the novel into a screenplay and was initially attached to direct, but the film did not move forward.

5. The film also features Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Michael Peña, Kate Mara, Sean Bean, Sebastian Stan, Aksel Hennie, and Chiwetel Ejiofor in supporting roles.

6. The film is based on Andy Weir’s 2011 novel The Martian, which was adapted into a screenplay by Drew Goddard.

7. Scott replaced Goddard, and with Damon in place as the main character, production was green-lit.

8. Approximately 20 sets were built on a sound stage in Budapest, Hungary, one of the largest in the world.

9. The film premiered at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 2015. 20th Century Fox released the film in theaters in the United States on October 2, 2015.

10. The film was released in 2D, 3D, IMAX 3D and 4DX.

11. The film received positive reviews and has grossed over $595 million worldwide, becoming Scott’s highest-grossing film to date, as well as the tenth-highest-grossing film of 2015.

12. Chastain prepared for her role by meeting with astronauts and scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center. She was inspired by astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson, saying “She’s very matter of fact, very straightforward. My character is dealing with the guilt of leaving a crew member behind, but she’s still responsible for the lives of five other crew mates. I tried to play her as Tracy would have been in those moments.”

13. Damon used a different method of preparation. He explained, “For me the rehearsal process was sitting with Ridley and going kind of line-by-line and moment-by-moment through the script and playing out a plan of attack for what we wanted each scene to accomplish.”

14. The writer of the novel, Andy Weir, first published his book for free on his own blog for fun. Then people asked him to put it in a downloadable form, then to put it on Amazon for Kindle download which he did at the then minimum price of $0.99.

15. Due to Mars’ low atmospheric pressure, the effective wind pressure in martian wind storms is much lower than shown in the movie, very unlikely to be sufficient to tip a spacecraft. Also, the wind on Mars is much too weak to carry large rocks.

16. The dust on Mars at the surface tends to be very fine, with grain sizes comparable to smoke particles. There are dust storms on Mars, but they look and behave like puffs of smoke instead of raging wind storms depicted in the movie.

17. Ridley Scott claimed that Matt Damon’s solo scenes were shot for five weeks straight, after which Damon was relieved from the schedule. Consequently, Damon did not meet most of his co-stars until the cast was reunited to promote the film.

18. Matt Damon was willing to lose massive amount of weight for the scene towards the end of the movie but Ridley Scott forbade it. Instead a body double was used.

19. NASA was consulted in order to get aspects of space and space travel, specifically in relation to Mars, with the most accuracy. NASA is federally funded, yet charges no one, including private for-profit organizations, any fees for use of and access to its archives and consultancy.

20. A real potato farm was installed on the studio lot with potatoes in all stages of growth so they could be used for filming.

21. The suits in the film use a very complex and actual functioning lighting system.

22. The mission to Mars in the film emulates actual missions that NASA is planning for the future.

23. Small changes were made to the script during filming, in part to have better scientific accuracy. Producer Mark Huffam said, “We’re working with 90% of the script that we started with”.

24. The movie starts on Sol 18 but the book starts on Sol 6.

25. One of the key plot elements is the force of the wind on Mars, which in the movie is shown to be strong enough to topple a large rocket and carry big objects. In fact, the Martian atmosphere is so thin, that even the fastest wind would be felt like a breeze to humans.