After delays and release date changes, Apollo 18 finally arrives in theaters this Friday. In case you want to know more before going in, an extended trailer has just been released.
"Officially, Apollo 17, launched December 17th, 1972 was the last manned mission to the moon. But a year later, in December of 1973, two American astronauts were sent on a secret mission to the moon funded by the US Department of Defense. What you are about to see is the actual footage which the astronauts captured on that mission. While NASA denies its authenticity, others say it’s the real reason we’ve never gone back to the moon."
Apollo 18 is directed by Gonzalo López-Gallego and continues the recent surge of found-footage films. Dimension marketing must have had fun promoting this as actual found footage, which included a lack of press interviews, IMDB (and elsewhere) not having a cast list, and news outlets such as The Huffington Post talking about found NASA footage:
"Using archival footage, the Wienstein Production capitalizes on the mystery surrounding the NASA program, unearthing a secret mission... where something went disastrously wrong."