National Geographic Channel's new series "Mars", which launches on Monday, aims to set new trends in television storytelling by combining real-life events and interviews with fictionalised drama.
"The offer to the audience will be information meets vivid and experiential filmmaking. Nat Geo's ambition was high, and we are really honoured and thrilled to try and meet that challenge," said Oscar-winning filmmaker Ron Howard, who is the executive producer of the series.
The futuristic series is set in the year 2033 with flashbacks to the year 2016 to capture mankind's fascination with the red planet and whether it can sustain human life. To make the production as realistic as possible, the team consulted a series of space experts, including Robert Braun, an aerospace engineer at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Mae Jemison, a former NASA astronaut who was the first black woman in space.
Musk said: "The future of humanity is fundamentally going to bifurcate along one of two directions: Either we're going to become a multi-planet species and a spacefaring civilization, or we're going to be stuck on one planet until some eventual extinction event.
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National Geographic's November issue has a cover story on "Mars" and the firm has also produced a book called 'Mars: Our Future on the Red Planet' to coincide with the series launch, which will air across 171 countries in the world.
Besides Howard, the team of this new inter-planetary TV mission brings together award-winning producers Brian Grazer and Michael Rosenberg of Imagine Entertainment and Justin Wilkes, Jon Kamen, and Dave O'Connor of RadicalMedia and Mexican filmmaker Everardo Gout.
The series was filmed earlier this year in Budapest and Morocco. The scripted portion focuses on Earth's first crewed mission to Mars aboard the spacecraft Daedalus. Its maiden voyage in 2033 is crewed by an international team of six, played by a mix of actors from across the world including Ben Cotton, Alberto Ammann, Jihae and Sammi Rotibi.
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