Project Hail Mary, the upcoming film adaptation of Andy Weir’s best-selling novel, centers on an unassuming high school science teacher who is thrust into an interstellar mission of extraordinary importance.
In 2020, prior to its merger with Amazon, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) secured the film rights to Andy Weir’s then-unreleased novel Project Hail Mary in a highly competitive deal reportedly worth $3 million.
Ryan Gosling stars as the protagonist, an ordinary man chosen for an extraordinary task: to travel deep into space in a desperate bid to save humanity.
If the film adheres to the structure of the novel, the narrative will unfold in a nonlinear fashion. Gosling’s character awakens aboard a spacecraft, alone and disoriented, light-years from Earth.
A new poster for the film has been released, as Amazon MGM also confirms that the first trailer will arrive on Monday.
With no memory of his identity, how he arrived there, or the nature of his mission, he must slowly piece together the truth through a series of flashbacks. He comes to realize he is the sole surviving crew member of "Project Hail Mary," a last-ditch effort to find a solution in a distant solar system to a global catastrophe threatening all life on Earth.
During his journey, the character encounters an alien being from another star system, also on a similar mission to rescue its own species from the same cosmic threat. The relationship that unfolds between the two becomes central to the story’s emotional and intellectual depth.
At CinemaCon earlier this year, Gosling described the film as “insanely ambitious” and praised its expansive vision, saying the sheer scale of the story and the challenges involved in bringing it to life are exactly what drew him to the project.
Project Hail Mary is scheduled for theatrical release in the United States on March 20, 2026.
The film is directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the creative duo behind The Lego Movie and 21 Jump Street.
In addition to Gosling, the film also stars Sandra Hüller as Eva Stratt, Milana Vayntrub as Olesya Ilyukhina, and Liz Kingsman.
No voice actor has been confirmed for the alien, Rocky, but James Ortiz is puppeteering, confirmed that the creature won't be purely cgi.
The screenplay is penned by Drew Goddard, who previously adapted Weir’s The Martian for the screen, earning critical acclaim for the 2015 Matt Damon-led hit.