Ryan Gosling Blasts Off in Project Hail Mary’s First Trailer

The Martian was a delight: gripping, funny, and surprisingly touching, the 2015 movie adaptation of Andy Weir’s bestselling debut novel pleased critics, turned in strong box office numbers, and nabbed a few awards along the way. So when rumors of a new Weir adaptation began to circulate—this time of his 2021 bestseller Project Hail Mary—fans of sharply written, character-focused science fiction had every reason to be hopeful.

Now Amazon MGM Studios has debuted the first trailer for the film, and it has us convinced this one’s going to be just as much of a winner. From the instantly relatable set-up to the big, cosmic reveal at the end, this looks like the kind of expensive, ambitious space adventure that takes its audience on a real journey. And with Ryan Gosling in the lead role, Drew Goddard penning the screenplay, and Project Hail Mary helmed by the filmmaking duo of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, we could be in for another big-budget sci-fi hit.

This latest Amazon MGM effort is the culmination of several years of work from all involved, with the studio acquiring the film rights to Weir’s novel even before it was released. In the time since, Goddard has been confirmed to adapt the screenplay, while the Lord/Miller team was also recruited to helm the film in development. For those who enjoyed The Martian, it’s all a bit of a no-brainer. Goddard’s previous screenplay was an adaptation of Weir’s breakout novel, and his deft touch and relative faithfulness to the source material were rewarded with an Academy Award nomination. Reuniting with Weir on the screenplay, while Lord and Miller provide the direction, only feels like a logical next step.

A successful directing partnership on the light-hearted side of the fence, the Lord/Miller team might seem like an odd fit for the hard sci-fi genre, but the trailer for Project Hail Mary suggests their penchant for comedy and heart could be the perfect way to bring Weir’s story to life.

The story follows Gosling’s Ryland Grace, an everyman middle school science teacher who wakes up on a spaceship to find himself unable to recall the last few months. According to the official synopsis, “Grace frantically tries to figure out where he is and how he got there.” From the start of the trailer, the audience is thrown right into his panic. Confused and disoriented, it doesn’t take long for Grace to realize he’s a long, long way from home: several light-years from Earth to be precise, and far, far away from his regular life as a teacher in an apartment in North Carolina.

Hints of how he got there are peppered throughout the opening moments of the trailer in the form of quick flashes of a pre-ordained mission, and a clean-shaven Gosling Grace on a mission from NASA. Weir, Grace, and their teams are pulled into an impromptu meeting, where they are told of a problem that threatens to make every life on Earth—and in the surrounding solar system—extinct. “There’s a mysterious cosmic phenomenon going on. It’s what we call a Sector-wide extinction event,” a red-robed woman is heard to explain.

Grace gets a crash course in what it means to be an astronaut (after a simple, hilarious exchange in which he’s asked if he knows how to fly a spaceship, to which he responds, “Sure. I have a pilot’s license!”), is given a hastily pulled-together space suit, and is sent on his way to the distant star that may hold the key to Earth’s survival. But by the time he wakes up on the ship, amnesia has set in, and it becomes obvious he’s been alone all along: every other member of the crew is dead, facts supported by casting announcements for a character named Olesya Ilyukhina, played by Milana Vayntrub, Grace’s Russian crewmate who’s also no longer with us.

He is at first suspicious, understandably so, but Grace’s opinion of the silent alien quickly changes. “I hate to say it, but he’s kinda growing on me,” he says in a recorded video to be sent back to Earth. “At least he’s not growing in me, you know?” In one touching scene, the pair bond over the alien form, approving of the universally recognized thumbs-up gesture, a small human triumph among an ocean of problems. “Ta-da!” Grace triumphantly says after he manages to get the notion across to the apparent plant-animal hybrid he names Rocky.

The Humorous and Heartfelt Space Story

The Project Hail Mary trailer follows the same familiar beats we’ve seen in the likes of The Martian, with a healthy mix of high-stakes, claustrophobic tension in the deep of space cut with moments of humor and warmth. Gosling’s laid-back demeanor and dry delivery pair particularly well with Weir’s penchant for placing relatable characters in impossibly scientific situations, and with Lord and Miller at the helm of this big-budget epic, things could be set for another smash sci-fi success.

Weir, Goddard, Lord, and Miller also have some time to wait before the film releases, the release date for Project Hail Mary set for March 20, 2026, at least giving potential viewers time to either scrub themselves clean of any knowledge of the book, or to read the novel themselves if they don’t want to wait. The combination of a cosmic mystery, life-threatening danger, and an interstellar buddy movie means this has all the hallmarks of one of the 2020s’ most anticipated sci-fi releases—and with the first trailer as evidence, it’s looking like a mission to keep an eye on.