Claire Foy Pops But First Look At Damien Chazelle’s ‘First Man’ Doesn’t Take Off

LAS VEGAS – Universal Studios put on quite a presentation for the world’s theater owners and operators on Wednesday.  They showed footage from the new “Halloween,” M. Night Shyamalan’s “Glass” and even ended the presentation with a surprise performance from the legendary Cher singing “Fernando” live from “Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again” (some of us may still be recovering from that).  What was most intriguing, however, was Damien Chazelle, Ryan Gosling and Claire Foy appearing on stage to show the first footage from “First Man.”

READ MORE: Damien Chazelle’s ‘First Man’ is not a biopic screenwriter says

Chazelle’s follow up to the Oscar-winning “La La Land,” the new drama tells the story of Neil Armstrong and how his historic journey to the moon affected not only the world but his family.  Gosling plays Armstrong and Foy stars as his wife at the time, Janet Shearon.   The film also stars Kyle Chandler, Corey Stoll, Jason Clarke and Jon Bernthal although they barely appeared in the first preview (or at all).

The buzz for months is that Foy gives an awards-worthy performance and that seems evident in the footage screened [Note: photo accompanying this story is from Foy’s work in last fall’s “Breathe”].  What was almost frustrating was except for a teasing shot of Armstrong opening the stairs to walk on the moon how matter of fact the rest of it looked.   It simply wasn’t a great trailer as a trailer.   Chazelle’s visual aesthetic might be overstated after fashioning a movie musical, but he does have an eye and he is reuniting with Academy Award-winning director of photography Linus Sandgren. We’re not sure this tease had the “moment” to elevate the movie beyond its cast and crew’s creative pedigree.

While on stage, Foy, Gosling, and Chazelle also pushed the idea we’ve never seen this story before.  We may have never seen this “exact” story, but the preview evoked familiar images from “The Right Stuff,” “Hidden Figures” and numerous TV movies and mini-series about the space race.  They may want to re-think that talking point.

But, all and all it is only 2 minutes, right?  Clearly, there’s a lot more to come.

“First Man” opens nationwide on Oct. 12.

Look for more coverage from CinemaCon all this week on The Playlist.