Project Hail Mary Adapts Andy Weir’s Novel with Star-Studded Cast

Back in 2015, we fell in love with The Martian, the tense, funny, and oddly moving adaptation of Andy Weir’s smash-hit debut novel. The film, starring Matt Damon and directed by Ridley Scott, earned raves from critics, decent box office returns, and some nominations and awards to boot. When it was announced there would be a second adaptation from Weir, this time of his 2021 bestseller Project Hail Mary, fans of big, character-driven science fiction had every reason to be excited.

Now, the first look at the film is finally here. Amazon MGM Studios has shared the first official trailer for the project, and based on that, it’s a safe bet to say that we’re in for a lot of science, a bit of survivalism, and some laughs, just like in The Martian. The film seems a huge-scope, big-idea sort of project from start to finish, which is not a surprise given that the cast is led by Ryan Gosling, the screenplay is penned by Drew Goddard, and the directing duties are handled by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. And, with the first trailer now out, the project feels like a legit sci-fi event.

It’s no secret that the MGM company showed a ton of interest in the property long before Weir’s novel even came out. MGM’s film and television arm, Amazon Studios, acquired the rights to the project and commissioned Goddard to write the screenplay before Weir even had a chance to publish his book. For those that are familiar with the Martian, this name won’t ring a bell—unless you were one of the many viewers who were impressed with how smart and faithful Goddard’s screenplay was. He earned an Academy Award nomination for his work, and his involvement in Project Hail Mary was announced early on. Seeing the trailer confirms that the project seems to be a good fit.

At first, the selection of directors Lord and Miller, best known for their work on Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and The LEGO Movie, might seem like an odd choice for hard sci-fi. It almost seems like a bizarre one as Lord and Miller are more known for their comedic, rather than drama-heavy work. However, since both The Martian and Project Hail Mary are about balancing serious stuff with humor and heart, the choice to put the directing duties in the hands of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller just might be the right one.

In the novel, Weir’s main character is a down-to-earth middle school science teacher who is drifting through space with no memory of how he ended up on his ship. Weir uses the voice of his protagonist to ground his ambitious story, giving a human face to what could otherwise be a dry cosmic mystery. The same voice also sets the tone for the opening sequence of the trailer.

With no warning and hardly any time to figure out what’s going on, Gosling’s character Ryland Grace, a mild-mannered schoolteacher and family man, wakes up on his spaceship, seemingly by accident. After a long pause, filled with him trying to figure out where he is, a second revelation comes in a hard hit: Grace is much, much farther away from Earth than his bed back home. From that moment on, the film—and the trailer, for that matter—cuts back and forth between scenes in space and Grace’s flashbacks as a teacher back on Earth.

Grace’s daily routine as a middle school teacher is interrupted when a woman, played by Sandra Hüller, approaches him and bluntly proposes a simple, but mind-blowing deal. If he does not go on a one-way mission into space, then everyone on Earth, including Grace and his students, is going to die. It doesn’t take long for him to agree, as he doesn’t want to face the prospect of losing his students. “Do you even know how much we need you?” she asks before leaving his classroom. As she walks away, the deal she made with Grace is summed up on-screen, bluntly as ever. “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, and we see a few different images of various life forms around the world.

Her proposition is steeped in mystery. As the narration by Gosling over the opening images explains, one of the sun’s seven nearest neighbor stars, the one next to Sol, is dying. Three other stars are getting faint, and no one can figure out why. Scientists are in the dark about the exact reasons for this cosmic phenomenon, but one thing is clear: a solution needs to be found, fast. Grace’s job, as a former molecular biologist and the man they’ve deemed most likely to have a breakthrough, is to figure out exactly what’s going on and, then, hopefully, to fix it before it’s too late.

Grace is, predictably, not keen on the idea. He jokes at one point about how “I put the ‘not’ in astronaut,” and also brags (or, rather, lies?) that he can’t even moonwalk. However, despite his protests, he’s given a crash course in space survival and very quickly launched on his interstellar journey. The problem is, once he awakens on board, he has been alone for a while.