As we first reported on SFFGazette.com, the first Project Hail Mary social media reactions have landed, and they're all overwhelmingly positive.
Multiple critics have hailed it as a masterpiece, praising Barbie star Ryan Gosling's performance and giving filmmakers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller their due for delivering a pitch-perfect sci-fi movie.
For Star Wars fans disappointed that 2018's Solo: A Star Wars Story was taken from them by then-Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy, it will now be that much harder not to wonder how much of a misstep that was on the executive's part. Regardless, this sounds a lot like redemption for the duo.
No one is shying away from mentioning Gosling's co-star, a mysterious alien he meets on his journey into the cosmos. However, the trailers have spoiled that, anyway, whereas in the Project Hail Mary book, it was treated as a surprise twist.
Last November, author Andy Weir justified the decision when he said, "It’s really more a marketing decision by Amazon MGM, but the idea was no one’s going to walk into that theater and not know about Rocky. This is not a Darth Vader is Luke’s father kind of situation."
"This is a core, central element of the plot that everybody’s going to be talking about and that everybody who’s read the book already knows about," he continued. "All trailers are designed to put butts in seats, and we want those butts in those seats. We want people to go now I want to know what’s going on."
In Project Hail Mary, science teacher Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) wakes up on a spaceship light-years from home with no recollection of who he is or how he got there. As his memory returns, he begins to uncover his mission: solve the riddle of the mysterious substance causing the sun to die out.
He must call on his scientific knowledge and unorthodox ideas to save everything on Earth from extinction, but an unexpected friendship means he may not have to do it alone.
Also starring Sandra Hüller, Lionel Boyce, Ken Leung, and Milana Vayntrub, and based on Andy Weir's New York Times best-selling novel of the same name, the movie is directed by Academy Award-winning filmmakers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the creative masterminds behind Sony Pictures' animated Spider-Verse trilogy.
Project Hail Mary arrives in theaters on March 20.