From The Martian to Project Hail Mary: Andy Weir’s Sci-Fi Legacy Continues

The Martian premiered in 2015. Fans met this gripping, funny, and, in its strange way, sentimental adaptation of Andy Weir’s debut novel with open arms. Ridley Scott helmed this action-packed blockbuster, and Matt Damon headlined it. In theaters, it received universal acclaim, raked in decent box office earnings, and even snatched a few accolades at the end-of-the-year award ceremonies. When the announcement was made about Project Hail Mary — a new adaptation, this time of Weir’s bestselling 2021 novel of the same name — there was every reason for fans of intelligent and character-driven sci-fi to rejoice.

Today, Amazon MGM Studios has dropped the first official trailer for Project Hail Mary, and it has good news: It seems that the film will embody the same spirit of scientific acumen, survivalist drama, and comedy that made The Martian so popular and memorable. The very first frame of the trailer until the very last shot makes one thing clear: This will be no less than a full-on sci-fi epic set in the depths of space, starring Ryan Gosling, with a screenplay by Drew Goddard and directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.

It’s no surprise that MGM Studios was already interested in Project Hail Mary before Weir even released his novel. The film rights were acquired well in advance. Drew Goddard was approached to handle the screenplay adaptation, and the deal was soon done and dusted. Fans of The Martian will remember Goddard for his intelligent and largely faithful screenplay for that movie, which won him an Academy Award nomination. It was only logical that the filmmaker be asked to return for Project Hail Mary. As for Lord and Miller, the directing duo behind Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and The LEGO Movie, they might seem like an unusual choice to take the helm of such hard sci-fi, but both of them have proven they have a good feel for blending humor with pathos.

Gosling stars as Ryland Grace, a middle-aged, middle school science teacher who awakens from suspended animation onboard a spaceship with no recollection of his past. The trailer wastes no time before showing Grace waking up in complete and utter panic and confusion. He quickly gathers that he’s thousands of light-years away from home, in no way near his old apartment building back on Earth. A series of flashbacks then fill in the blanks as we get a glimpse of a clean-shaven Grace back on Earth, just finishing up a class before being accosted by a high-ranking member of a special mission (played by Sandra Hüller) who offers him the role of his life.

The catch? The Sun is going out. Not just our home planet: all nearby stars have dimmed except for one. Scientists have no clue why, but they theorize that an unknown force of cosmic nature is responsible. As a former molecular biologist, Grace could be the very key to understanding the phenomenon.

As one of his recruiters dryly informs him at some point, Grace is no big fan of the idea. “I put the ‘not’ in astronaut,” he scoffs in one of the scenes. “I can’t even moonwalk!” But, as the interviewer, Eva Stratt, played by Hüller, informs him, time is running out. “If you don’t go, you die with the rest of us,” she intones. “If we do nothing, everything on this planet will go extinct.” The recruit’s list of recruits is starting to shrink. The fate of the world is literally in Grace’s hands. Or, rather, it will be in a few moments, once he’s been inducted and finished up his crash course on orbital mechanics. He has little choice but to say yes.

Reluctantly, he agrees and is shot out of the spaceship in short order. But by the time he awakens onboard, his temporary amnesia has set in, and it is clear that he is not the only crew member. All other members of the space crew have perished, leaving him to complete the rest of the journey solo. Grace will be dead soon if he doesn’t get the job done. It turns out that the mission was simply one long test to see if he was the one — and to see if he would be up for the challenge, too. A close reading of the casting details for Project Hail Mary confirms that he’s, indeed, lost most of the crew. Milana Vayntrub was cast as Olesya Ilyukhina, a Russian female crew member who is very much dead in the game’s timeline.

The loneliness doesn’t last for long, however, as Grace soon makes contact with another spacecraft and, as a bonus, a new species of life. He dubs it Rocky, and it is in every way a brand-new life form to humankind. As far as humans are concerned, it is truly an alien, but as Grace and the audience will soon discover, it is no space pest set on humanity’s destruction. “He’s kinda growing on me,” Grace signs off on a recorded audio message before being transported back to space. “At least he’s not growing in me, you know?” The trailer even features a moment of cross-species camaraderie as Grace attempts to teach Rocky the universally human thumbs-up.

Sci-Fi Spectacle with a Light Touch

From the brief yet jam-packed 90-second trailer, Project Hail Mary will probably have the same blend of edge-of-your-seat drama, humor, and heart that so endeared audiences to The Martian. Ryan Gosling has great understated charm, Weir is a master at combining hard science and likeable characters, and the directing team of Lord and Miller are no strangers to compelling storytelling. The formula has all the makings of a crowd-pleasing science fiction spectacle.