The Astronaut Farmer

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The Astronaut Farmer
The movie poster for The Astronaut Farmer.
Directed by	Michael Polish
Produced by	Len Amato Mark Polish Michael Polish Paula Weinstein
Written by	Mark Polish Michael Polish
Starring	Billy Bob Thornton Virginia Madsen Bruce Dern Max Thieriot
Music by	Stuart Matthewman
Cinematography	M. David Mullen
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date(s)	February 23, 2007
Language	English
Budget	$13,000,000 (est) USD
IMDb profile

The Astronaut Farmer is a 2007 film directed by Michael Polish and starring Billy Bob Thornton. Polish and his brother Mark also serve as writers and producers of the film. The movie took place in Texas, but it was filmed in New Mexico, USA. It was released on February 23, 2007.

1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Trivia
4 Quotations
5 See Also
6 External links

[edit] Plot

Charles Farmer (Thornton) is a former astronaut in training who gave up his dream job to save his family's farm. Never having traveled into space, he decides to build his own space craft, a replica of the historic Mercury-Atlas, with his own time and materials. He encounters interference as the United States government tries to stop him.[1]

[edit] Cast

Billy Bob Thornton as Charlie Farmer
Virginia Madsen as Audrey "Audie" Farmer
Max Thieriot as Shepard Farmer
Bruce Dern as Hal
Jon Gries as FBI Agent Killbourne
Tim Blake Nelson as Kevin Munchak
J. K. Simmons as Jacobson
Kiersten Warren as Phyllis
Mark Polish as FBI Agent Mathis
Jasper Polish as Stanley Farmer
Login Polish as Sunshine Farmer
Sal Lopez as Pepe Garcia
Bruce Willis as The Colonel (Uncredited)

[edit] Trivia

This is one of two films starring Virginia Madsen premiering on Februrary 23rd, 2007, the other being The Number 23 starring Jim Carrey.
This is the second time Billy Bob Thornton and Bruce Willis collaborated in a space-themed movie, the first being Armageddon.
Shepard, the son in the movie, is named after Alan Shepard, the first American in space.
Congress passed the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act in 2004 [2].
The Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Commercial Space Transportation (FAA/AST) licenses private suborbital rocket launches following the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 14, Chapter III.
The rocket featured in the film is nearly-scale replica of the Mercury-Atlas that launched America's first astronauts into orbit.
The film's release date, February 23rd, comes just three days after the the 45th anniversary of the United States' first orbital mission, Friendship 7, piloted by John Glenn. Glenn's flight and the remaining three Mercury flights were all orbital missions using the Atlas booster.
The space suit worn by Thornton's character is the same Mercury-era Navy Mark V pressure suit worn by all of the Mercury Seven astronauts prior to Mercury-Atlas 9. [3]
The ring tone of the "villanous" FBI agents watching the farm is the Imperial March from the Star Wars Saga.
Brian Walker served as the basis for the film .

[edit] Quotations

"If we don't have our dreams, we have nothing."
"If I was building a weapon of mass destruction, you wouldn't be able to find it."
"Somewhere along the line, we stopped believing that we can do anything."