October Sky, is the true inspirational story of a group of boys growing up in a small coal-mining town in West Virginia in the 1950's. It was also Jake's Big Break. It was Jake's first time in a leading role (really, it was his first time in any role. In all of his films up to that point he is hardly more than an extra - with maybe 5 lines at most.) Jake played Homer Hickam Jr., the leader of the boys in the story, and son on the town coal mine's supervisor. In Coalwood, boys were expected to grow up and become miners - unless a lucky one got a football scholarship to a university. Homer was an exception. After seeing the Russian satellite Sputnik in the sky one night, Homer was inspired to try to build his own rockets. With the help of his friends, the school math geek, and his teacher, Miss.Riley, Homer begins to build his own rockets and fire them into the "October sky."
The film was released on February 19th, 1999, and was met with great critical reviews and a pretty good box office, despite having an almost all-unknown cast.
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