Lucy in the Sky type Movie

Fox Searchlight announced Thursday the Noah Hawley-directed sci-fi drama will touch down in theaters on Oct. 4 — prime real estate for films looking to enter the Oscar race. Last year, Bradley Cooper’s Lady Gaga-starring Best Picture nominee A Star Is Born opened across the same weekend frame, while other early-October openers like Birdman, Argo, and First Man have gone on to win or be nominated for multiple Academy Awards.

Inspired by the real-life story of Lisa Nowak — a former astronaut who, after returning from a 13-day mission, drove nearly 900 miles from Houston to Orlando in an attempt to kidnap her ex-lover’s new partner in February 2007 — Lucy in the Sky stars Portman as Lucy Cola, a space traveler who comes back to Earth psychologically shaken in the wake of a lengthy mission. She ultimately loses touch with reality while beginning a life-altering affair with another astronaut, Mark (Jon Hamm).

Image zoom Hilary B. Gayle/Fox Searchlight

“I go up there and see the whole universe and everything here looks so small,” the Oscar-winning Black Swan performer says in the film’s first trailer, which dropped in March and features trippy sequences that see Portman floating through the clouds, submerged upside-down in a vat of water, and apparently having sex while careening through a starry sky.

Fargo and Legion creator Noah Hawley directed the project, while Reese Witherspoon (who originally boarded the film in the lead role under its original title Pale Blue Dot) served as producer alongside her longtime collaborator Bruna Papandrea (Big Little Lies), Hawley, and John Cameron (The Big Lebowski).

Lucy in the Sky — also starring Ellen Burstyn, Legion‘s Dan Stevens, Deadpool 2‘s Zazie Beetz, and Fear the Walking Dead‘s Colman Domingo — blasts off into theaters on Oct. 4. Watch the film’s trailer above.

Image zoom Hilary B. Gayle/Fox Searchlight

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