File this one under things that make you go hmmm… just thought I'd share on a slow news day 🙂

So… as I just learned, apparently that zero-gravity sex scene between Angela Bassett and James Spader in the 2000 film Supernova really didn't involve Angela Bassett and David Spader.

Yes, I know doubles are used often in this industry, especially for sex scenes, but this wasn't just a case of doubles being called in for the brief, barely visible sequence. 

Instead, that zero-g sex scene between Bassett and Spader was actually put together in post-production, using out-takes of scenes with Robin Tunney and Peter Facinelli (both co-stars of the film), with Tunney's skin color being digitally darkened so that the audience would think the body we were looking at was Angela Bassett's.

But it wasn't. 

I haven't watched that film in so long; it was almost universally panned, although, if I recall correctly, I didn't think it was as horrible as most critics and audiences felt. Not great; but not the worst either.

I embedded the scene in question below (luckily it was on YouTube); the actual sex scene as I said is very brief, and you can barely make out much'; it happens towards the end of the clip. The question is whether the scene, reportedly an idea from Francis Ford Coppola, who was brought in to essentially help save the film in post-production, had much of an impact on the movie? Did it help make it better, since I'm guessing that was Coppola's motivation for inserting it? I'll have to go and watch that film again. It's been awhile.

Here's the scene:

[io9]