National Geographic Channel’s thought-provoking six-part series MARS premiered in the Philippines on Sunday, November 13 at 9:00PM. A brand-defining series for National Geographic Channel, MARS tells the story of mankind’s thrilling quest to colonize the Red Planet. This global television event redefines on-air storytelling by combining film-quality scripted drama and visual effects with a powerful documentary interviewing some of the best and brightest minds in modern science and innovation, including Elon Musk.
MARS: Created by Hollywood Award-Winning Directors and Actors
MARS is the work of Academy Award-winning and Emmy-winning producers Brian Grazer, Ron Howard and Michael Rosenberg of Imagine Entertainment; and Academy Award-nominated and Emmy-winning producer Justin Wilkes and Dave O’Connor of Radical Media.
The show’s stars include South Korean-born singer, composer, and multimedia artist JiHAE, playing Mission Pilot Hana Seung; and Ben Cotton, known for sci-fi productions ranging from Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome to The Chronicles of Riddick, who takes on the role of American Mission Commander Ben Sawyer.
Making MARS Home
The scripted portion of MARS follows a crew of six fictitious astronauts in the year 2033 as they travel to Mars aboard the spacecraft Daedalus – Earth’s first-ever crewed mission to the Red Planet. The mission is funded by international partnerships and corporations, working together to get this once-in-a-lifetime voyage off the ground. When the uniquely qualified Daedalus crew arrive on Mars, they explore astounding wonders and grapple with unexpected challenges as they work to set up humanity’s first colony on the Distant Planet.
Bridging the space between science and science fiction, MARS also showcases an unprecedented collection of interviews with the world’s leading scientific minds. As the fictional story of the Daedalus crew unfolds, television audiences will hear real interviews with some of the most fascinating people on Earth, including astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson; business magnate and inventor Elon Musk; Andy Weir, author of The Martian, adapted into an Oscar-nominated film starring Matt Damon; and former NASA astronauts Charles Bolden, John Grunsfeld and James Lovell.
“Brian [Grazer] and I, along with our friends at Radical, had this ambitious idea, which was to create a documentary about the quest to go to Mars but also bring it to life in a really dramatic and cinematic way,” said Executive Producer Ron Howard. “The offer to the audience will be information meets vivid and experiential filmmaking. Nat Geo’s ambition was high, and we are really honored and thrilled to try and meet that challenge.”
Lucien Harrington, SVP of Marketing & Communications for the FOX Networks Group in Asia, said, “MARS is a first-of-its-kind program for the National Geographic Channel in that it fuses fact with fiction, based on scientific data and predictions. Like the fictional mission of the Daedalus in 2033, getting this show off the ground represents the exceptional efforts of a huge number of people – from our visionary producers, talented actors and out-of-this-world visual effects team, to the scientists and engineers who advised them. Today, at the premiere of MARS, we are delighted to see all of that hard work translate into an unprecedented global television event.”
The suspenseful story of humanity’s first manned mission to Mars will be revealed in one-hour episodes over the next six weeks. Tune in to National Geographic Channel for its continuing episodes every Thursday at 9:00PM beginning November 17, 2016.
For more about the show, visit mars.natgeotv.com and www.makemarshome.com.