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The costume had already been auctioned off in 1999 and has since remained in a temperature-controlled room.
AFP
Centerpiece of the sale organized in Beverly Hills on July 17 and 18, the astronaut costume is estimated between 200,000 and 300,000 dollars. It is all the more sought after as the director Stanley Kubrick is reputed to have destroyed most of the props and costumes of “2001”, considered as a masterpiece of the genre, to prevent them from being used in other films without his authorization.
Iconic scenes
According to Jason DeBord, head of the auction house Julien’s Auctions which organizes the event, the only other major piece of the film sold at auction was the space shuttle Aries 1B, which transported Dr. Heywood Floyd from the space station to the moon. It had been acquired by the Academy of Oscars in 2015 for 344,000 dollars.
The diving suit put under the hammer in July was probably used in one of the most emblematic scenes of “2001”, when Dr. David Bowman (played by Keir Dullea) destroyed HAL 9000, a computer that has developed consciousness and decides to kill the astronauts to be able to accomplish the mission for which it was programmed.
The costume had already been auctioned off in 1999 and has since remained in a temperature-controlled room. “It is as if it has disappeared from the face of the Earth,” DeBord told AFP.
“2001, the Space Odyssey” was selected in four Oscars categories and won in that of special effects, thanks to the realism with which it represented space travel.
Talking car of “K 2000”
Among the 900 other objects put up for sale by Julien’s Auctions are notably the piloting command used by Neil Armstrong during the flight of Apollo 11 to the Moon, estimated between 100,000 and 200,000 dollars, as well as a tailor-made glove designed for Armstrong.
Less spatial but just as spectacular, the famous talking car used for the television series “K 2000”, a Pontiac Firebird Trans Am from 1982, is also in the catalog, estimated between 100,000 and 200,000 dollars.
Estimated between $ 20,000 and $ 40,000, Superman’s red cape, worn by Christopher Reeves in the 1978 film, is expected to fly to Beverly Hills next month.
(NXP, AFP)
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