The Midnight Sky spoilers follow.
It might not be a cheery festive watch, but George Clooney's The Midnight Sky is proving a popular choice on Netflix.
The sci-fi movie takes place after a mysterious global catastrophe has ended life as we know it on Earth, leaving terminally ill scientist Augustine (Clooney) with a race against time to stop a team of astronauts returning to Earth.
But even when he manages to get in contact with them, the astronauts on board are faced with a difficult decision and one of them makes a devastating choice. Spoilers are ahead, so look away now if you haven't seen The Midnight Sky yet.
Related: The Midnight Sky ending explained
Shortly after the crew of the Aether get their first look at the scorched Earth, Augustine is able to contact them to warn them not to return as there are no safe entry points or "survivable" areas.
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The crew decide to head back to K-23 which can support human life, but Mitchell (Kyle Chandler) makes the heartbreaking decision to return to Earth anyway to fulfil a promise he made to his family that he'd return. Due to a delayed message from his wife, he knows they're probably dead, but he wants to go anyway.
Talking to Digital Spy and other press, Chandler revealed that he understood Mitchell's decision and could connect to it "immensely".
"I'm a father and a husband and I've got a family and those connections, you take that to the set with you. I connected up somewhere along the way to the development of the character that this was one of the last trips that Mitchell was going to do," he explained.
"Within he and his wife speaking about this, she demanded that he do this, but he made a promise to her that he would come back. That was in my mind throughout."
Chandler added that he approached the role by creating a sense that since it had been a two-year journey, the oxygen on the ship had been breathed so many times that there was always a "little bit less".
"So when the decision to go home came along, it was a necessity to keep that promise," he noted, with Clooney adding that it was actually Chandler who came up with Mitchell's moving words about returning home and wanting to keep a promise.
Clooney also spoke to Digital Spy and other press about creating the movie's incredible floating blood sequence, while Felicity Jones revealed she was "very worried" that her pregnancy would get her fired.
The Midnight Sky is available to watch now on Netflix.
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Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
