Russian Movie That Filmed In Space Releases Trailer; Beats Tom Cruise In Feat

"The Challenge," the Russian sci-fi thriller that beat Tom Cruise's upcoming film to become the first movie to shoot aboard the International Space Station, has released a new trailer.

Central Partnership dropped the first look at "The Challenge" via its YouTube channel over the weekend.

In the three-minute trailer, actress Yulia Peresild, who plays cardiac surgeon Zhenya Belyaeva, can be seen floating inside the ISS as her character tries to perform surgery on a sick cosmonaut.

"Cosmonaut Ivanov loses consciousness while the spacecraft is in flight. Doctors decide that it will be necessary to perform heart surgery right in zero gravity. Cardiac surgeon Zhenya Belyaeva, who does not have time to raise her three-year-old daughter, is preparing for the flight," the official synopsis of "The Challenge," also known as "Doctor's House Call," reads, according to Screenrant.

The flick made history by becoming the first fiction film to shoot footage in space using actors and a director.

The production sent Peresild and the film's director Klim Shipenko into space aboard a Soyuz transport vehicle in 2021 for the history-making shoot.

The filmmaker spent 12 days shooting 30 hours of material and hired actual cosmonauts as actors alongside Peresild, such as Oleg Novitsky, who played the sick cosmonaut Ivanov.

Since they were the only ones who headed to space via Soyuz MS-19, Shipenko took on several roles during the filming. He became his own art director, production designer and makeup artist. He and Peresild left the ISS on Oct. 17, 2021.

Around 35 minutes of footage from the space trip were included in the final cut of the film.

The Russian movie also stars Miloš Biković, Vladimir Mashkov, Alyona Mordovina, Tatyana Dogileva, Sergey Burunov, Elena Valyushkina, Alexey Barabash, Igor Gordin, Aleksandr Baluev and Polina Agureeva.

The director, NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov made cameos in the film.

"The Challenge" is scheduled for release in Russia on April 12.

While he will no longer be the first actor to shoot a fiction film in space, Cruise still plans to go to the ISS to film his own space project with director Doug Liman.

Donna Langley, the head of Universal Pictures, confirmed to BBC News last year that the "Mission: Impossible" star intends to become "the first civilian to do a spacewalk outside of the space station" during filming for his upcoming movie.

The title and details of the film have not been announced, but Langley said the majority of the story will take place on Earth before Cruise's character "needs to go up to space to save the day."

Liman and Cruise are working with both NASA and Elon Musk's SpaceX for the project.