Project Hail Mary Movie Brings Andy Weir’s Bestseller to Life

If you were watching films in 2015, you almost definitely saw The Martian. It’s an adaptation of Andy Weir’s bestselling debut novel, a funny, tense, and surprisingly moving entry in the character-focused hard science fiction canon. The film, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon, received enthusiastic reviews, strong box office, and several award nominations and wins. So when the announcement came that Weir had a new book, Project Hail Mary, hitting shelves in 2021, it came as little surprise that it was quickly adapted for the screen.

Amazon MGM Studios have now released the first official trailer for the adaptation of the same name. For anyone who enjoyed The Martian, the clip has a familiar vibe. Pacing-wise, from start to finish, it’s a big-budget, blockbuster space odyssey that’s about big ideas and the science that makes them feasible. Add in lead actor Gosling, the writing talents of Drew Goddard on the screenplay, and directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, and Project Hail Mary has the potential to be a major event in 2023’s sci-fi landscape.

Amazon MGM had the film rights to Project Hail Mary before the book even came out. The studio made a deal with Weir in advance of its publication in order to acquire the rights. Once it was ready for production, Goddard was hired to adapt the novel for the screen. Goddard, who fans of The Martian will recall was the clever and faithful screenwriter on that adaptation, was nominated for an Academy Award for his efforts. Securing his return for Project Hail Mary was a no-brainer. Lord and Miller are a more unconventional pick for hard science fiction, but in light of their filmography, which boasts entries like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and The LEGO Movie, their brand of humor and heart might be the winning combination for this story.

Project Hail Mary follows the story of Ryan Grace (Gosling), an introverted middle school science teacher who awakens on a spaceship with no memory of how he came to be there. The trailer quickly immerses the audience into his panic and befuddlement as he surveys his surroundings. He is very far from home, light-years away from his apartment, as shown by the window. Recollections then help piece together what has occurred; Grace on Earth, clean-shaven and in casual clothes, at some point in the recent past, where he is teaching his students before being approached by an opportunity few would turn down: the mission to save the Earth from going extinct.

The reason is that the Sun is in peril of dying out. A multitude of stars are not just dimming, but only one is ablaze. The others, including our own, are decreasing to alarming levels. Experts in the field have little knowledge of why. There is a hint that some intergalactic enigma is at play. Grace is a former molecular biologist and one of the best individuals to figure out why the lights are being turned off.

He’s not particularly enthusiastic when he’s recruited to go on the mission, though. “I put the “not” in astronaut,” he brags, and “I can’t even moonwalk!” During this pre-mission meeting, high official Eva Stratt (Sandra Hüller) bluntly puts the choice to Grace: “If you don’t go, you die with the rest of us. If we do nothing, everything on this planet will go extinct.” It’s enough to force him to choose. He’s afraid to fail in front of his students and save everyone around him.

Training goes by in a flash, and he’s sent on a lengthy voyage. Awakening after some temporary amnesia to find himself on a spaceship, it becomes obvious that he’s doing this solo. The rest of the crew has perished along the way, likely long before the beginning of the film. The cast list goes through at one point, naming Milana Vayntrub as a Russian deceased crew member, Olesya Ilyukhina. As is the case for Grace, loneliness will not be an issue for long.

Grace will come upon another spaceship and, surprisingly, an entirely new kind of life. The extraterrestrial being, who he dubs Rocky, is a different living thing from everything that humanity has ever encountered. Rocky, though, is not the monster that the trailer’s narration and marketing materials might lead one to believe. “He’s kinda growing on me,” Grace reports, in what appears to be a pre-recorded video message. “At least he’s not growing in me, you know?” Rocky is not very humanlike, but the trailer does show a playful moment between the two when Grace instructs him in the proper thumbs-up.

A Human Space Epic

Humor and pathos are the same genres as Project Hail Mary’s predecessor, The Martian, as well as the book. If this first trailer is an indicator of how the final product will turn out, the movie’s tone and tenor will be far more reminiscent of Weir’s earlier work than Scott’s. Gosling’s easy-going personality, Weir’s talent for pairing his love of hard science with broadly relatable and often hilarious characters, and the established storytelling prowess of Lord and Miller could help make for a sci-fi experience that sticks with viewers.

March 20, 2026, is the film’s release date, so audiences have a lot of time to either avoid any possible spoilers or head to a local bookshop and order a copy of the book. In any case, with its mix of intrigue, suspense, and a new type of friend, Project Hail Mary could be one of the most hotly awaited science fiction films of the current decade. Whether or not it lives up to the original book, Project Hail Mary has enough good will to come out of the gate.