Project Hail Mary (film)

• 1. Introduction

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  Project Hail Mary begins with a schoolteacher waking from an induced coma in the year 2032, aboard an interstellar spacecraft he has no memory of boarding. His name is Ryland Grace, and he teaches middle school science. He is also the only survivor of a three-person crew, and the ship, called the Hail Mary, is bound for the Tau Ceti system, 11.9 light-years from Earth. This 2026 science fiction comedy was directed and produced by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, written by Drew Goddard, and adapted from Andy Weir's 2021 novel. Ryan Gosling plays Grace and also produced. Why would anyone send a former molecular biologist turned teacher on a mission like this? What is out there at Tau Ceti? And how does a film about lonely problem-solving in deep space get made without a single green screen?

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• 2. A Dimming Sun

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  The trouble starts with a thin band of infrared light stretching from the Sun to Venus, which scientists call the Petrova line. Something in that line is multiplying on the Sun's surface. They name it astrophage, and it is dimming the Sun at a rate that would bring catastrophic global cooling within 30 years. Eva Stratt, who leads the Petrova Taskforce, recruits Grace to study the stuff. He finds that astrophage is made of single-celled organisms. They soak up the Sun's electromagnetic radiation and then expel it as a means of propulsion. Grace also works out how to breed astrophage on Earth, and that skill shapes everything after. The taskforce then backs an international long-shot mission, Project Hail Mary, aimed at Tau Ceti. Tau Ceti is the one star near Earth that astrophage has not blotted out. The ship can carry only enough fuel for a one-way trip, so any discoveries must travel home in smaller probes. Then an astrophage explosion kills the original science officers. With no time to train new ones, Stratt asks Grace to fill the gap, and he refuses out of fear.

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• 3. The Stranger From Erid

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  A second vessel, which Grace labels Blip-A, docks with the Hail Mary in the present day. Its hull is a solid form of xenon, and Grace dubs the material xenonite. Inside is a rock-like creature with five legs, from a planet called Erid in the 40 Eridani A system. Grace names him Rocky. He works out that Eridians perceive the world through echolocation, then builds a machine translation system to decode Rocky's musical language. Rocky turns out to be a mechanical engineer, and the only survivor of his own people's mission to save their star from astrophage. Neither can breathe the other's air, so Rocky works inside a pressurized ball of xenonite. The two quickly become close friends. Together they study the Petrova line around the planet Tau Ceti e, which Grace calls Adrian. They find an entire microbial biosphere there. Rocky theorizes that microbes in Adrian's atmosphere are eating the astrophage and keeping it in check. When Rocky learns that Grace cannot go home, he hands over some of his own ship's astrophage fuel. During a risky pass to collect the microbial predator, a fuel leak sends the Hail Mary into an uncontrolled spin and knocks Grace out. Rocky breaks out of his ball to save him and is badly hurt. While Rocky recovers, Grace studies the predator, names it taumoeba, and breeds it to survive the nitrogen in Venus's atmosphere. Once Rocky revives, they celebrate. Then Grace remembers how he really got aboard, because Stratt had him drugged and loaded onto the ship, convinced he alone could finish the job. After their goodbyes, Grace finds that the taumoeba has learned to slip out of its xenonite breeding tanks and is eating the Hail Mary's fuel. He moves it into plastic containers. Then he sees the larger danger. Rocky's ship is built entirely of xenonite, so nothing there can hold the taumoeba, and it would devour his fuel and strand him, dooming Erid. Grace chooses to rescue Rocky and the Eridians instead of returning home. He sends his video logs and taumoeba samples to Earth by probe. Stratt and her team use those samples to cure the Sun's infection. On Erid, Grace lives in an Earth-like biodome built for him and teaches science to Eridian children. Rocky tells him that Eridian scientists might be able to send him home, and Grace is unsure he wants to go.

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• 4. Page To Production

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  In March 2020, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was close to buying the screen rights to a novel that nobody could yet read. The book was Weir's Project Hail Mary, due in 2021, and the rights cost $3 million. Gosling was already attached to star and produce. In May 2020, Lord and Miller were hired to direct and produce, and pre-production began that year. They could not write the script themselves, because they were busy with Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, released in 2023. The following month the studio hired Goddard instead. He had already adapted Weir's 2011 novel The Martian into a 2015 film, so the author's voice was familiar territory. Amazon MGM Studios, which bought Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 2022, announced a possible 2026 release window in April 2024. Sandra Hüller joined the cast as Stratt in May 2024, and Greig Fraser was named cinematographer. Milana Vayntrub signed on the following month. The supporting company grew to include Ken Leung as the Hail Mary's Chinese commander, Yao Li-Jie, and Vayntrub as the Russian engineer Olesya Ilyukhina. Lionel Boyce plays a security officer named Carl. The most unusual casting question, though, concerned the alien.

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• 5. The Rockyteers

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  Rocky was a physical object on set, built and designed by Neal Scanlan and his creature shop. A team of five puppeteers, nicknamed the Rockyteers, operated him, led by James Ortiz. Ortiz also supplied the artificial voice that Rocky speaks with, and he performed opposite Gosling during filming. Lord praised the arrangement as a collaboration between the puppeteers on set and the animators at Framestore, led by Arslan Elver. Miller later estimated that by the end of the film, shots with Rocky were about half visual effects animation and half puppetry. For a while, the plan was to replace Ortiz's voice with a better-known actor. Alternate voices were tried, including those of the film's stunt coordinator Eunice Huthart, Sony Pictures Animation co-president Damien de Froberville, and Ray Porter, who narrated the audiobook. Meryl Streep also recorded a version. After screenings, Lord and Miller decided that Ortiz's performance could not be improved on, so the film kept it. Ortiz has one more credit that never appears on screen, an uncredited turn as a television presenter.

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• 6. No Green Screens

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  Principal photography ran from the 3rd of June 2024 to the 26th of October 2024, entirely in the United Kingdom. Studio work took place at Shepperton Studios. Location shoots included South Parade Pier in Portsmouth, the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory in Cambridge, and Durdle Door and Man o' War Cove in Dorset. Every scene aboard the Hail Mary was shot on a real, practical set built for the production. Miller told The Hollywood Reporter that the film used no chroma keying at all. Fraser and visual effects supervisor Paul Lambert had worked together on the Dune films, and both disliked green and blue screens. Those screens spill colored light onto actors and sets, which affects lighting and the look of the picture. Instead, the team used blackouts and grey screens. Miller explained that effects work was reserved for the spaceship's exterior, while shots of Gosling in space were filmed against a black or shifting-colored backdrop. NASA helped with scientific experts, and astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren visited Gosling during filming to talk through what human spaceflight is actually like.

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• 7. Frames And Sound

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  The shape of the picture itself changes during the film. Cameras used were large-sensor Arri Alexa 65 units, which deliver 6.5K resolution of roughly 20 megapixels. The crew rotated anamorphic lenses by 90 degrees to reach the IMAX standard of 1.43:1. A common 2:1 version for ordinary theaters was made by cropping the top and bottom of that IMAX frame. Scenes set in the present use a taller frame, which is 1.43:1 for IMAX 15/70 mm or Dual Laser, 1.85:1 for Xenon or Single Laser, and 2.00:1 for non-IMAX screens. Flashbacks use the wider 2.39:1 ratio, a standard for anamorphic photography. After shooting digitally, the filmmakers transferred the picture to film stock and re-digitized it, hoping to capture the warmth of analog film. The first test screening ran 3 hours and 45 minutes, and audience feedback drove the cut to its final length. Framestore, Industrial Light & Magic, Sony Pictures Imageworks, BUF and Wylie Co. VFX built the effects, with Lambert and Mags Sarnowska supervising and Joel Negron editing. The composer, Daniel Pemberton, was announced at San Diego Comic-Con. He had scored Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) and its 2023 sequel, which Lord and Miller produced. That made this the first Lord and Miller film not scored by Mark Mothersbaugh. The 38-track score reached digital release on the 20th of March 2026. Fourteen other songs fill the soundtrack, among them "Sign of the Times" by Harry Styles, "Two of Us" by the Beatles, "Rainbows" by Dennis Wilson and "Gracias a la vida" sung by Mercedes Sosa.

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• 8. Crowds And Critics

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  On the 30th of June 2025, the first trailer arrived and drew 400 million views worldwide in its first week. That was the most for any original film's trailer in that period. Lego released a Hail Mary spacecraft model in its Lego Icons series on the 1st of March 2026. The film premiered in London on the 9th of March 2026. Amazon MGM Studios released it in the United States and Canada on the 20th of March 2026, while Sony Pictures Releasing International handled every other territory. Forecasts first suggested an opening weekend of $45-55 million, later raised to $63-65 million across 4,007 theaters. The film earned $31 million on its opening day, including $12 million from previews. It debuted to $80.6 million in the US and Canada and $60.4 million overseas, a worldwide $141 million that set a record for Amazon MGM Studios. The second weekend brought $54.1 million, a drop of 32.8%, and kept it at number one. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie took the top spot in the third weekend, when Project Hail Mary earned $31.7 million. In Japan, it became the biggest foreign film of 2026 by first-day attendance revenue. The final total was $679 million worldwide, made up of $342 million in the US and Canada and $337 million elsewhere. That made it the third highest-grossing film of 2026. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave it an "A", and Cine21 averaged its ratings at 8 out of 10. G. Allen Johnson of the San Francisco Chronicle called it "a masterpiece of a family popcorn movie". Randy Myers of The Mercury News gave it 3.5 out of 4, and Brian Truitt of USA Today gave it four out of four. Other critics were more guarded. Robbie Collin of The Telegraph questioned its originality but wrote that "it's hard not to be swept up regardless." Barry Hertz of The Globe and Mail called it "a grand act of cinematic recycling". Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian found Gosling charming while noting moments of dullness. Nicholas Barber of the BBC named it one of the best films of 2026, praising how the film turns a bleak premise into something cheerful and fast-paced. The film reached digital streaming on the 12th of May 2026, with 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray and DVD releases scheduled for the 11th of August 2026.

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