Fly Me to the Moon, the romantic comedy starring Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum, is finally making its streaming debut. Apple Original Films announced today that the film will be available to stream on Apple TV+ on December 6th.
Fly Me to the Moon was originally slated to debut on Apple TV+, but after positive test screenings, it was given a theatrical release in July. Unfortunately, the film grossed just $42.2 million against a budget of $100 million. It also received mixed reviews from critics and audiences. That’s typically a recipe for a studio to immediately dump the film on streaming, so it’s surprising that Apple has waited so long. Perhaps they’re hoping the film will find a bigger audience over the holidays.
The film is “set against the high-stakes backdrop of NASA’s historic moon landing. Brought in to fix NASA’s public image, sparks fly in all directions as marketing wunderkind Kelly Jones wreaks havoc on launch director Cole Davis’s already difficult task. When the President deems the mission too important to fail, Jones is directed to stage a fake moon landing as back-up and the countdown truly begins…“
Our own Tyler Nichols found the film to be a “very light and fun experience” but found that the romantic comedy aspects sometimes clashed with the conspiracy theory elements. “The romance between Kelly and Cole makes this feel very ‘rom-comy’ at times. Their chemistry helps make it charming but it’s hard not to feel like it’s a bit cliche,” Nichols wrote. “Unfortunately, in trying to tell a romance story along with this very conspiracy-laden space mission, the film can feel a bit disjointed. The movie’s first half is essentially about funding the project and making the general public care. Then the second half is about the conspiracy theory regarding filming a fake moon landing. Because of this, it feels like the main plot doesn’t actually start progressing until almost an hour in. There are merits in both halves of the film, but the crux of the story resides in the second half, so I’m not sure why it wasn’t more built around that. At times, it feels like it could have had 30 minutes cut, while also having enough going on that this could have easily been a miniseries.” You can check out the rest of Nichols’ review right here.
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