Mars Express

Mars Express marks Mackenzie Crook's feature directorial debut, with his Detectorists co-star Toby Jones attached to lead. The film tells the true story of Colin and Judith Pillinger and their mission to land a spacecraft on Mars in the late 1990s. With no background in spacecraft engineering, the couple assembled an unconventional team that came remarkably close to succeeding with the Beagle 2 Mars lander project. Joe Bone has written the script, based on Pillinger's book My Life On Mars: The Beagle 2 Diaries. Big Talk Studios and Altitude are producing, developed in association with BBC Film. Production is scheduled to shoot in the UK later in 2026, with a soundtrack of Britpop classics. Altitude will handle theatrical release in UK and Ireland, with international sales.