Ryan Gosling's Ryland looking at a microscope in Project Hail Mary
Warning: Mild SPOILERS lie ahead for Project Hail Mary!Ryan Gosling's Project Hail Mary adaptation is garnering widespread acclaim for its faithful translation of Andy Weir's novel, but the team did make a few changes along the way.
Based on the 2021 sci-fi novel, Gosling leads the film as Ryland Grace, a man who awakens from a coma on a spaceship with retrograde amnesia and light-years from Earth. Eventually remembering that he is a former molecular biologist who was tasked with investigating a microorganism causing the sun's gradual dimming, Ryland races to find a way back to his star system and to save his home, with the help of a surprising new ally. Alongside Gosling, who spent years on the project as producer and star, the cast includes Sandra Hüller, James Ortiz, Lionel Boyce, Ken Leung and Milana Vayntrub. Drew Goddard, the Oscar-nominated scribe behind Ridley Scott's adaptation of Weir's The Martian, is back as writer for Project Hail Mary, with Oscar-winning duo Phil Lord and Chris Miller helming the sci-fi adventure film in their first live-action feature effort since 22 Jump Street. Hitting theaters on March 20, Project Hail Mary has garnered near universal acclaim from critics and audiences alike, currently holding a 95%"Certified Fresh" approval rating from the former and 97% from the latter on Rotten Tomatoes. Additionally, it's already blowing up at the box office, bringing in the biggest Thursday night haul of 2026 with $12 million, and currently being projected to earn up to $65 million domestically in its opening weekend, which would be the biggest for Amazon MGM Studios. Ahead of the film's release, ScreenRant's Liam Crowley interviewed Ryan Gosling, Drew Goddard, Andy Weir and Phil Lord & Chris Miller to discuss Project Hail Mary. While the movie largely stays true to the source material, one notable element that was toned down for the adaptation was the mention of Erid, the home planet of Ryland's rock-like alien ally Rocky, and the Eridians, the others who live on the planet. Asked about this change from the sci-fi novel, Goddard clarified that while"the Eridians are in there," it's"not mentioned nearly as much" in Project Hail Mary due to the fact that Ryland is"saying it to himself" in much of Weir's book. For the film, the Oscar nominee explained that the"only times we talk about it" are when Ryland and Rocky have specific discussions about the planet: Drew Goddard: I know it's in there, but you're probably right that it's not in there nearly as much as the book because there's no reason for him to be saying it to Rocky. We were really, and this is a credit to Ryan Gosling. He was really conscious of always keeping us locked into what Ryland would actually be saying in any given scene, not the exposition that I needed to get Ryland Grace to say in the scene. And that really informed the movie. Gosling Was At The Top Of Weir's List To Play Project Hail Mary's Ryland ScreenRant: When I first saw you were cast for this movie, I said,"Impossible. He's way too charming." Yet, leaving Project Hail Mary, I was like,"No one else could have been Ryland Grace." How did you pull off being awkward? Ryan Gosling: Well, that's a very charming opening to the interview, so I'll take that. I'm not good at space, and he's not good at space. He's not an astronaut, and I'm not an astronaut. He's appropriately terrified of the task ahead of him and I could relate to that. I found a lot in common with him, really. I think that's what makes him such a relatable character, and why so many people love this book. He's not like your typical hero. He's not stoic. He's not brave in the conventional sense. He would rather run away than run towards. He has to find a way to believe in himself. I think we can all relate to that. ScreenRant: Some roles that you have that I've loved, like Sebastian in La La Land or Officer K in Blade Runner 2049, are so stoic, and there's so much emotion conveyed with just your face. Yet here, even when it's a one-man show at times, you're talking consistently. What was it like to get to tap into that side, and have the quips and the dialogue really help convey that emotion? Ryan Gosling: I love Andy's work, and it's also why I wanted Chris and Phil to make this movie. They had to make this movie, because humor is such an important component to all of this. It certainly makes all the dense science feel palatable, and also, it's so emotional that you need the humor to balance that. So, just being able to find the humor in every situation we were in and everything was going wrong all the time while we were shooting, and we were shooting with a puppet, Rocky is very high maintenance. He's got a team of puppeteers with him called The Rocketeers. They're dressed like ninjas. Everything's going wrong. And just to have someone like James Ortiz, the puppeteer, with me who could just laugh about it, and we could just incorporate it into the scene and into the story just added to the magic and spontaneity of the movie. ScreenRant: Speaking of things that are saved for the movie, we got a little glimpse of Adrian in the trailer. Watching that scene, I felt the same emotions from the Interstellar docking scene, though heightened to a new level. Did you guys feel when reading that scene in Andy's book that it was going to translate to what you envisioned on the big screen? Chris Miller: What's so fun about the book is that it is thrilling and exciting, and you're on the edge of your seat one moment, and you're laughing another moment, and you're crying in another moment. And we just wanted to do something that visually didn't look like anything you'd ever seen before, but had the tension from the sound and the picture and the music all working together in harmony to make you feel like you couldn't take a breath. ScreenRant: You did the screenplay for The Martian, so you're no stranger to Andy Weir's work. I'd love to know what your collaborative relationship looks like with Andy when it comes to taking his words on the page and developing them for a screenplay meant to be realized in live-action. Drew Goddard: I think first and foremost, we share the most important quality, which is that we both have a profound love for Andy's writing. So, as a result, I came to it from a place of just wanting to protect the soul of his work. I think he knows that now that we've gone through The Martian together. There's a tremendous amount of trust between the two of us. It made it easier in that regard. I think this was a much harder adaptation because it's just a far more ambitious book. It's a far more complicated book. It's a far more mature book. I think when I read it, for the first half, I was pretty scared. I was like,"I don't know how we're going to be able to pull this off because this is a really complicated movie." A lot of the elements do not lend themselves well to cinema. Then I kept going and kept falling deeper and deeper in love with the book. And then I realized,"Okay, it's going to be hard, but I can't stop thinking about it, so let's give it a whirl." ScreenRant: I was told that Ryan Gosling was like your guy for Ryland Grace from the get-go. Was there a specific performance of his that you saw that made him your ideal candidate? Andy Weir: I think you're ascribing a lot more authority to me than I actually have. My desire for who to play, I mean, Ryan absolutely nailed it. I'm very happy we got him. He would've been the top of my list anyway, but I'm not the guy who . That's way above my pay grade. That was the studio reaching out and stuff like that. But absolutely, he was the top of the list, and he was interested. And so that was the end of the list. ScreenRant: I'm curious, for elements like the design of Rocky or Adrian as a planet, did you yourself have any influence over the concept art and the visual effects design? Andy Weir: I didn't really participate too much in the visual design. Not that I wasn't invited, but I don't have a very visual imagination. So when I'm writing, I just see sort of blobs in my mind, like a blob for Ryland, a blob for Rocky. I'd worked out Rocky's morphology, like how his body works and stuff, but not the details of what he would look like if you were staring at him. I just don't have that visual of an imagination. I'm definitely not someone who can give any useful advice to visual artistry. I just let the people who are good at that do their job. And then once they came up with it and said,"Here's what we got," my brain was like,"Okay, that's Rocky. That's Ryland. There we are." I didn't have that cognitive dissonance because it wasn't competing with an image I had in my head.Project Hail Mary is now in theaters! 10/10 9/10 Project Hail Mary 10 stars 9 stars 8 stars 7 stars 6 stars 5 stars 4 stars 3 stars 2 stars 1 star Like Follow Followed PG-13 Science Fiction Adventure Drama Release Date March 20, 2026 Runtime 156 Minutes Director Christopher Miller, Phil Lord Writers Drew Goddard, Andy Weir Producers Ryan Gosling, Amy Pascal, Andy Weir, Aditya Sood, Christopher Miller, Phil Lord, Rachel O'Connor Cast See All Based on the novel by Andy Weir , Project Hail Mary is an action-adventure sci-fi film that stars Ryan Gosling as an astronaut who must save Earth from an oncoming ice age by heading to a faraway galaxy. Main Genre Sci-Fi Executive Producer Drew Goddard, Ken Kao, Lucy Kitada, Nikki Baida, Patricia Whitcher, Sarah Esberg, Will Allegra Studio Lord Miller, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Distributor Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Powered by Expand Collapse
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