National Geographic is going out of this world with One Strange Rock, premiering Monday, March 26. Hosted by Will Smith, the 10-part docu-series from filmmaker Darren Aronofsky and producer Jane Root features astronauts sharing personal perspectives from their time in space. Tim Pastore, President, Original Programming & Production, National Geographic, talks about how the show is pushing limits.
Cynopsis: How is One Strange Rock pushing limits for National Geographic? 
Tim Pastore: One Strange Rock definitely reflects the scope of creative ambition that we hold dear at National Geographic. From development through production, this series was three years in the making with our partners at Protozoa and Nutopia. We brought cameras where they’ve never been before, filmed in 45 countries, on six continents, and shot in outer space on the ISS. In total, we shot more than 389TB of footage, which is equivalent to a 22-year movie marathon. With such a diverse array of talent backgrounds, including the vision of Darren Aronofsky, this wonderfully creative mix allows us to deliver the most thrilling, out-of-this-world epic tale about our planet unlike one ever seen before. By gathering the eight former and current astronauts, and their incredible stories, and with the incomparable Will Smith to guide us, we’re looking at our magnificent planet through the eyes of those few who have left it. We’re hoping to spark curiosities and show how awe-inspiring our planet Earth is. It’s going to be an unprecedented, cinematic, entertaining, and stunning trip around our world.
Cynopsis: What does it have in common with other National Geographic programming?
Pastore: We’re re-inventing science/exploration storytelling and making it fun, entertaining, and accessible. It’s entertainment with a purpose, and a distinct creative lens. We’ve become a destination for some of the best talent the genre – and the industry – has to offer in this space. And with their partnership, we are continuously exploring new manners in which to push the boundaries of storytelling. With the upcoming fall return of MARS, we’ve married hybrid factual and scripted, featuring the world’s foremost big thinkers to tell the dramatic story of how we made Mars home. With StarTalk, we’ve brought Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s popular podcast to television as a late-night talk show where science and pop culture collide. And we pushed live event programming further with Earth Live, a live natural history event that was simultaneously shot on six continents revealing nature as it happened in real time.
Cynopsis: Should we expect the boundaries of programming for the network to continue to expand?
Pastore: Absolutely. We are part of a 130-year-old organization that has been committed to telling the most compelling stories about our world for its entire history, and we’ll always stay committed to doing this. We have a brand that we not only have to live up to, but also push forward. And we’ve made incredible headway in seeing that vision become a reality. It’s so incredibly important for us to not only continue our premium content strategy on our linear platform on TV, but to also tell these important stories across our media portfolio – our magazine, social media, and beyond – to trumpet the importance of science, and to incubate future explorers and scientists.
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