Brad Pitt goes deep into space to save humanity in James Gray’s science fiction film Ad Astra, which means “to the stars” in Latin. The trailer introduces astronaut Roy McBride (Pitt), who is assigned to find out what happened to the classified mission that caused the disappearance of his father, Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones), years ago. The film is set for a September 20 release.

During a mission to find advanced extra-terrestrial life, Clifford experiments with a material that could threaten the solar system, a character says in the trailer. Roy’s follow-up involves, among other things, a shootout on presumably the moon.

Gray said in interviews that Ad Astra would have “the most realistic depiction of space travel that’s been put in a movie”. He compared the film to Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novel Heart of Darkness and called Ad Astra a mash-up of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979).

Gray has co-written the film with Ethan Gross. Hoyte Van Hoytema (Interstellar) is the cinematographer. Max Richter (Waltz with Bashir) has composed the score. Gray’s last film, The Lost City of Z, was an adventure set in the Amazon forest.