Bill, the Galactic Hero (film)
A student film adaptation of Harry Harrison's 1965 novel.
Bill, the Galactic Hero is a 2015 science fiction student film. Alex Cox directed it alongside six student co-directors, adapting Harry Harrison's 1965 novel of the same name. The story centers on a farmhand who gets drugged and forcibly enlisted into the Space Troopers. After a lucky shot destroys an enemy fleet, he is hailed as a hero, only to become trapped in a confusing bureaucracy. Eventually, he recruits his own younger brother into the military, upsetting their mother.
Cox first secured the film rights to Harrison's novel in 1983, while finishing *Repo Man*, but studio resistance stalled the project. In 2012, while teaching film production at the University of Colorado at Boulder, he proposed having his students adapt the book. Harrison granted an academic license, but there is no evidence he was actively collaborating on the screenplay at the time of his death in August 2012. In March 2013, Cox launched a Kickstarter campaign seeking $100,000; it raised $114,957 from 1,106 backers. He also arranged for several film professionals to work on a royalties basis. Production began in October, with scenes shot in university buildings. Despite some early claims, Iggy Pop did not contribute to this film's soundtrack.
The film premiered in Boulder, Colorado on December 12, 2014, to positive reviews. It was later screened on New Year's Eve at the Clinton Street Theater.
Quick Facts
- Director
- Alex Cox / Danny Beard (co-director) / Merritt Crocker (co-director) / Amanda Gostomski (co-director) / Alicia Ramírez (co-director) / Raziel Scher (co-director) / Jordan Thompson (co-director)
- Producer
- Sultan Saeed Al Darmaki / Malcolm Edwards / David Stewart Zink / Brigid Igoe / Kaleb Tholen / Claudio Bottaccini / Kyle Curry / Charles Gill / George P. Snoga / Simon Tams / Steven Christopher Wallace
- Writer
- Alex Cox
- Based On
- Bill, the Galactic Hero by Harry Harrison
- Starring
- James Miller
- Music
- David Bashford
- Cinematography
- Robert Ortega / Grant Speich
- Editing
- Mia Debakker
- Studio
- Biting Sheep Productions / University of Colorado Boulder
- Released
- 12 December 2014
- Runtime
- 90 minutes
- Country
- United States
Facts from the source article.
Reader's Guide
Bill, the Galactic Hero represents a unique intersection of professional and student filmmaking, born from a decades-old unrealized project. Alex Cox's persistence in adapting Harry Harrison's novel, first optioned in 1983, finally materialized through an academic setting at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The film's production was notable for its successful Kickstarter campaign, which raised over $114,000, and for involving Iggy Pop, who contributed the theme song. The film's positive reviews and its premiere in Boulder, Colorado, followed by a screening at the Clinton Street Theater, mark it as a modest but significant entry in Cox's filmography and as a tribute to Harrison, who died while collaborating on the screenplay. Its status as a student film with professional backing and a cult novel source gives it a distinctive place in science fiction cinema history.
Did You Know?
- Alex Cox initially optioned the film rights to the novel in 1983 while completing Repo Man.
- The Kickstarter campaign raised $114,957 from 1,106 backers, exceeding its $100,000 goal.
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