Project Hail Mary Adapts Andy Weir’s Hit Novel for the Big Screen

In 2015, moviegoers fell in love with The Martian, Ridley Scott’s witty, suspenseful, and surprisingly tender adaptation of Andy Weir’s best-selling debut novel. Praised by critics, earning decent box office returns and some awards, the Matt Damon vehicle made a star of Weir himself. Fans of science fiction with brainy, affable protagonists leapt for joy when the filmmaker’s next book, the 2021 bestseller Project Hail Mary, was announced as the next Weir adaptation. Given the hit film’s audience and the author’s enduring popularity, it was an easy sell.

Now, Amazon MGM Studios has released the first official trailer for Project Hail Mary, and from the first few seconds to the final cut, it’s evident that the adaptation is a big-budget space opera in every sense of the word. In tone and subject matter, it appears to channel The Martian’s combination of scientific rigor, nail-biting survival narrative, and character-driven humor. There are a lot of big words floating around in this trailer. Ryan Gosling stars as a similarly brainy, if disheveled, everyman; Drew Goddard has adapted the screenplay; and the directing team is Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who also served as producers.

Amazon MGM Studios first expressed interest in the novel well in advance, long before Weir even sold the book to a publisher. The film rights for Project Hail Mary were reportedly acquired by Amazon and MGM before the novel was published, and Goddard was signed to adapt the screenplay shortly thereafter. For fans of The Martian, Goddard will be familiar; he also adapted Weir’s first novel for the screen. The result was an extremely faithful and well-received adaptation of the book, garnering Goddard an Academy Award nomination for his work on the film. A lesser-known fact is that the script for The Martian was bought by the studio at least 10 times before the filmmakers found a producer willing to back Goddard’s take. It’s no surprise, then, that the studio would look to him once more.

The double-director-director is a name that may be unfamiliar to those anticipating the film. Working together on a range of projects in live-action, animation, and family-friendly sci-fi, Lord and Miller have made their mark in recent decades with films like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and The LEGO Movie, as well as the FX show Rick and Morty. Few could indeed have expected hard sci-fi from the directors of The LEGO Movie; their background in comedy has generally veered towards slapstick. However, this unusual comedic background, combined with their well-documented passion for character-driven stories, might be just the combination that will make Project Hail Mary a triumph.

In the trailer, Gosling plays Ryland Grace, a middle school science teacher and the protagonist. The protagonist awakens on a spaceship. He has no memory of getting there and is filled with the fear and anxiety one would expect from finding themselves in such a situation. Grace comes to the (slowly dawning) realization that he is thousands of light-years away from home (far from his ground-floor apartment in his hometown), and flashbacks begin to play, showing a clean-shaven, unflustered Grace in a classroom on Earth. Grace is approached by an unknown recruiter and asked to join a one-way mission to save the world from extinction.

Why? Because the Sun is dying, of course. But that’s not all. Not only is the Earth’s star dimming rapidly, but several of the planets’ nearest stars are too. A single star is slowly brightening to make up for the other losses. Scientists know little about the phenomenon, but suspect that an unknown, galactic force is to blame. Grace, a former molecular biologist, is asked if he knows of anything that might cause it. Grace is not thrilled by this news. “I put the ‘not’ in astronaut,” he says sullenly in one frame. “I can’t even moonwalk!”

Nonetheless, he is recruited. Eva Stratt, a gruff, high-level bureaucrat played by Sandra Hüller, offers him a simple (if somewhat melodramatic) pitch. “If you don’t go, you die with the rest of us. If we do nothing, everything on this planet will go extinct,” she says. Reluctantly, Grace acquiesces—especially after being told that his students could be lost forever if he doesn’t volunteer.

“He’s kinda growing on me,” he continues. “At least he’s not growing in me, you know?” Rocky and Grace even partake in a little cross-species sign language, Grace teaching the former the power of the thumbs-up.