Amazon MGM’s Project Hail Mary Gears Up for Launch in 2026

It’s 2015, and The Martian is in theaters. Matt Damon is tossing off one-liners, and audiences are loving a story that is smart, suspenseful, and unexpectedly touching. With great casting, a thoughtful adaptation of Andy Weir’s science fiction debut novel, and Ridley Scott at the helm, it’s not hard to see why The Martian was such a success: It’s funny, science-heavy, and a filmgoer’s science fiction adventure. After it, the next logical step for the Weir book franchise would be to take on Weir’s latest novel, Project Hail Mary. The 2021 bestseller follows a man waking up from cryosleep to find himself alone in space. Today, Amazon MGM Studios released the first trailer for Project Hail Mary, and it looks like it has all of The Martian’s science and spirit in spades.

The Trailer Teases a Monster-in-Space Mystery with Star Power

The 2-minute trailer is shot in that big-budget, bigger-concept, kinda epic style, but the focus is really on the film’s hero, played by Ryan Gosling, and his strange new surroundings. Almost the entire trailer takes place on this ship with Gosling’s character scrambling to figure out where he is and what the hell happened. The setup seems straightforward: A few scenes show a put-together-looking man in a shirt and tie addressing a group of middle schoolers, presumably his students. Then, it cuts to the same man looking disheveled, sweaty, and covered in vomit. This is the first time we hear the voice of Ryland Grace, played by Gosling.

It’s not long before he figures out that he’s on a spaceship and is light-years away from the home planet. Project Hail Mary flashes back to a scene of the same character on Earth, giving a lecture in front of a board. This time around, he’s clean-shaven. After some more rapid-fire info dumping, it becomes clear that Grace is a science teacher who volunteered for a mission to avert an extinction-level event, and that mission is to figure out why the Sun is dying.

Another nearby star is dimming, and there’s just one bright spot: one sun that isn’t dimming at all. Nobody knows why, but they think the same interstellar force that’s caused the other stars to flicker is killing the Sun. Grace, a former molecular biologist, is a leading candidate for one of the few spaceships designed to get to the other side of the dying stars to figure it out. Grace has some hesitation, joking that he “can’t even moonwalk” and that he “put the ‘not’ in astronaut,” but he’s convinced by the project’s lead, played by Sandra Hüller, who essentially just tells him that if he doesn’t do it, he’ll die, and if no one figures out what’s happening, everyone will die.

It’s bad, but he agrees, and after some quick space training, he’s on his way, waking up at the end of a cryosleep journey. He realizes he’s alone when he finds the bodies of the other crew members and learns that there were three: himself, Hüller’s character, and a third, Russian crewmember played by Milana Vayntrub.

Soon after, though, he spots another ship, a “backup,” as he describes it, and the mystery of Project Hail Mary begins. There’s another lifeform, an entirely different, alien species, one that is alive and not the bad guy one might expect. “Hey, I think we may be able to help each other,” he says, adding later, “He’s kinda growing on me. At least he’s not growing in me, you know?” Rocky, as he calls the alien, also gets in on some of the humor. Grace gives him the thumbs-up, and Rocky, in return, mimics him in a scene that’s cute enough to make you want to cry. “He understands me. I think we’re going to be best friends,” Grace continues.

Project Hail Mary Has Science, Star-Powered Storytelling, and a Release Date

Project Hail Mary has a clear concept with a story that promises both suspense and humor. Gosling and Lord, and Miller, the directing duo behind Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and The LEGO Movie, are an interesting pairing for Weir’s adaptation, but it could be a recipe for disaster, the trailer indicates. On one hand, this could be the next big name for the space-minded auteur, much like what happened with The Martian, the book adaptation that netted Weir bestseller status. On the other hand, Lord and Miller have a style that is typically lighter than space spectacles usually demand. The trailer doesn’t look too “Lord and Miller-y,” and it could very well be the kind of hard sci-fi viewers didn’t know they needed until they saw this trailer.

If this film has anything like the same fate as The Martian, it’ll be released two years from now. Project Hail Mary will arrive in theaters on March 20, 2026. It’s still two years until it’s in theaters, so that’s enough time to both avoid and get sucked into any possible leaks or spoilers and read the book in preparation, too.