Meet Rocky, the Alien Star of Project Hail Mary

It was 2015 when The Martian captured audiences’ hearts and imaginations. Weir’s dry wit and attention to scientific detail provided the perfect bedrock for a story that was gripping, funny, and surprisingly emotional. The movie adaptation, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon, became a huge hit, racking up awards and box office dollars. So when news broke of an upcoming Weir adaptation, this time of his 2021 bestseller Project Hail Mary, science fiction fans rejoiced.

Amazon MGM Studios released the first official trailer for the film today, and from the opening shots to the end, it’s clear the Weir of The Martian has returned with another tale of space-age survival. Woven into a high-concept, high-stakes plotline are a healthy dose of humor and relatability that has become Weir’s trademark. As with its predecessor, the cast is led by an A-list talent in Ryan Gosling. With Drew Goddard on screenwriting duties and directing handled by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, Project Hail Mary looks to be another sci-fi blockbuster for the ages.

Amazon MGM had a lot of interest in bringing the story to the screen. In fact, before the novel was even published, Amazon MGM acquired the film rights to the project, with Goddard attached to handle the screenplay adaptation. Goddard was a clear choice to return to the Weir well: His script for The Martian was very smart, a near-note-for-note adaptation of Weir’s novel that even earned him an Oscar nod for his efforts. So bringing Goddard in first was a no-brainer.

Lord and Miller, the directing team responsible for Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and The LEGO Movie, are another surprise pairing for fans of hard science fiction. Their earlier works have often played with this hard/sci-fi genre in innovative and humorous ways, and many have hoped they would be the next ones to push the button on a Studio Ghibli-like film set in space (see: Your Name). That said, their unique take on science fiction could be just what Weir’s story needs.

In Project Hail Mary, Gosling plays Ryland Grace, a mild-mannered middle school science teacher who mysteriously wakes up on a spaceship, with no memory of how he ended up there. His growing panic sets the tone for the first half of the trailer: Grace quickly realizes he is light-years away from Earth, with no clue how to get home. As flashbacks to Grace’s life back home fill in the blanks of how he came to be on the ship, a familiar-looking, clean-shaven Gosling is shown teaching his middle school science class before a strange delegation approaches him. The job offer is, in a word, otherworldly. As the universe as they know it is on the brink of extinction, the scientific community has tapped Grace for a last-ditch, experimental effort to save the planet.

The extinction-level problem? The Sun is dying, and with it, it appears other stars in the surrounding solar system are dimming, with one exception. Theories abound as to why this is happening, but no one can quite put a finger on what is happening. Grace’s skillset as a former molecular biologist may just be what is needed to piece together the missing clues.

Grace, for his part, is not exactly amenable to the offer at first. “I put the ‘not’ in astronaut,” he jokes in one scene, “and I can’t even moonwalk!” But his protestations fall on deaf ears in the form of Eva Stratt, a high-ranking official played by Sandra Hüller. Her sales pitch is blunt, to say the least. “If you don’t go, you die with the rest of us,” she warns. “If we do nothing, everything on this planet will go extinct.” The stakes get even more personal for Grace, as he’s given the choice to lose his students or lose all of humanity. After a last minute balking at the idea, Grace signs on the dotted line.

Fast-forward through a crash-course in space survival, and Grace is launched on his mission. But by the time he wakes up on the ship, a bout of temporary amnesia has taken hold, and he has no memory of his mission or how he got to the ship. As it becomes evident that he’s the sole survivor of the mission, the crew he and Stratt pitched to Grace has mysteriously died somewhere along the journey. Casting details released in conjunction with the trailer further confirm the death of Olesya Ilyukhina, the Russian crew member, played by Milana Vayntrub.

Science Fiction That’s Got Heart

If the trailer is any indication, Project Hail Mary looks set to walk the line between the high-tension desperation of The Martian and the humor and heart Weir and company have created in the time since. Gosling’s unassuming charm and deadpan delivery, the rigorous science and relatable characters that only Weir can deliver, and Lord and Miller’s long history of great storytelling has the makings of another big science fiction blockbuster.

Project Hail Mary’s release date is already set: March 20, 2026, over four years away. So fans have the choice to either avoid the novel and any possible spoilers, or to dive into Weir’s newest work with time to kill until they can see the finished product on the big screen. Either way, the mystery, the stakes, and the wholly unique friendship that Project Hail Mary is building up to will likely make it one of the most hotly anticipated sci-fi flicks of the 2020s. We’ll have to wait and see if it lives up to the source material, but from the first trailer alone, it’s a mission we’re willing to follow.