Wes Lyons attended the LA premiere of A Smile as Big as the Moon and has a blog post up about it now over at his site.
Again, as a reminder, the Huntsville premiere is this evening. Though the link to the Space Camp Store to buy a ticket seems to have gone offline, you can still get tickets by calling 256-721-7114 or showing up early. Doors open at 6:30pm for a 7:00pm showing of the movie.
Mike Flachbart, Vice President of Center Operations, posted a fantastic photo to his twitter feed. An impressive six members of the Space Camp Hall of Fame live in the Houston area, and every single one of them made it out to the Houston Smile premiere last Friday night!
Update: As Robert Pearlman rightly pointed out to me, Jim lives in Austin, TX and made the sojourn to Houston just to be at the premiere!
From left-to-right, Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger (2007), Andrea Hanson (2010), Valerie Meyers (2012), Jim Allan (2009), Amanda Stubblefield (2007), and Robert Pearlman (2009) all made it out for what I’m sure turned out to be a most excellent evening!
Great photo, Mike!
A Smile as Big as the Moon premieres in Huntsville tomorrow night, and will show this Sunday night on ABC.
A Smile as Big as the Moon sees its LA premiere this evening.
Wes Lyons is out there, so here’s to hoping to see coverage of the event on his site real soon!
Other members of the Huntsville local media are out for the event as well. WAAY has sent Shea Allen out to the event. Part 1 and Part 2 of that adventure are available for your enjoyment.
If you’re in the Huntsville area, you can attend the local premiere and see the movie before its scheduled airing on ABC this Sunday evening. You can see the movie this Friday evening by purchasing tickets here at the Space Camp Store.
Update: WAAY 31 now has Part 3 on their site.
Though filming occurred in October, A Smile as Big as the Moon is ready for its premiere.
The movie will show on January 29 at 9pm EST on ABC.
And a trailer has been posted:
You can visit Space Camp’s web page for the movie to find premieres in Huntsville, Houston, and Grand Rapids, Michigan if you can’t wait until the 29th and want to see it a little early.
The book itself is getting a reissue as well, and will be released ahead of the movie on January 17th.
Kaya Tuncer, founder of Space Camp Turkey, passed away on January 7, 2012. He was 74 years old.
Space Camp is participating in Black Friday this year with their own Hab-Buster special!
At 12:01am (CST, presumably), the first 8 people to book a Space Camp or Aviation Challenge week online will get it for $499. After the first 8 are sold, you can book through November 28 for $749.
The email that went out claims boldly, “THIS WILL BE OUR ONLY DISCOUNT FOR 2012.”
Not too shabby!
It’s no secret that the Space & Rocket Center has had some financial issues as of late. Numerous staff have been laid off or transferred to temporary employees to save money.
Some additional relief has just been found as the City of Huntsville is giving the Space & Rocket Center $250,000 to help. The timing is very good as well. Summer is over and the Space & Rocket Center the non-busy season is underway.
All the way back in 2002, you may remember that I reviewed the book, A Smile as Big as the Moon, a wonderful story about a group of special needs kids who manage to get themselves to Space Camp despite internal and external obstacles.
My book report ended with the following:
And for you Space Camp movie fans out there pining for a SpaceCamp 2 (aren’t we all?!), you may just get it! The very last thing I read in this book was the inside jacket cover. I was quite thrilled when my eyes came across a sentence that read, “The film rights for [Mike Kersjes’] book have been sold to Jerry Bruckheimer for Walt Disney Pictures.”
Fast-forward to nine years later and here we are. A Smile as Big as the Moon is about to go into production!
The movie is to be produced by Hallmark Hall of Fame and will air on the ABC network sometime in 2012.
Filming is set to take place in Wilmington, NC but scenes will be shot at Space Camp also!
The Space Camp scenes are currently scheduled to be filmed later this month.
The movie will star John Corbett as Coach Mike Kersjes and Jessy Schram as teacher Robynn McKinny.
On Friday, the Space & Rocket Center laid off five employees this past Friday and converted seven more from full-time to part-time or temporary positions.
It is reported this will save the Center $500,000 in the new fiscal year.
The layoffs were reported on Friday by the Huntsville Times. Visit this link for the article.
Wes over at Sprocketeers has his own take on the situation as well.
I have nothing to add other then, if they’re looking to save money, I do hope loans have been refinanced in light of record low interest rates.
As of this posting time, 12-day ASA is filled with a waiting list to boot!
Aviation Challenge still has one spot remaining. If you’re interested, eligible, and reading this, call right now!
