History of the Book and Movie
On May 4th, 2021, Andy Weir, a Science Fiction author, released his newest book, Project Hail Mary. The story follows a former school teacher named Ryland Grace on a mission to save Earth by going to a certain star to save it from a sun-dimming algae called “astrophage.” The book became an Instant Best-Seller, which might be due in part to Andy’s other book, The Martian, which is why Andy Weir was famous in the first place. Project Hail Mary went on to win Best Science Fiction book at both the Dragon and Goodreads Choice awards that same year in 2021.
The film was announced in March of 2020. The reason the film was announced before the book’s release was that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer acquired the rights to the book for $3 Million dollars, one year and 2 months before. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were hired to direct the film in May 2020. Due to their inability to write the screenplay because of commitments to Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Drew Goddard was then set to write the screenplay. Fun Fact: Drew also wrote the screenplay for The Martian. In 2022, MGM announced a possible 2026 release with filming beginning in June 2024 in the United Kingdom. Throughout the entire production, no green screen or CGI was used. The movie finally wrapped up filming in October of the same year, and on March 20th, 2026, the film was finally released and so far has become a Critical and Box Office success.
Review
I went into this film not seeing much promotion, no knowledge of the story, and only knowing a little bit of the plot. However, from what I saw, it looked aesthetically beautiful. So on March 21, my brothers, Dad, and I saw the movie, and after seeing it, it was honestly amazing! I’d even say it’s the best movie this year so far! The movie follows the same plot as the book, but it executes the story really well and makes it a great adaptation. Despite never having read the book, I feel the movie does a great job at adapting this story. The characters in the film are also really likeable, even characters that have very small speaking roles are likeable, especially Rocky. He was a very fun comedy character but didn’t feel like just the comedy character; he felt like an actual character you connect to. Compared to a film like Interstellar, the movie’s story and plot are quite easy to understand and follow. It’s quite easy to tell why he’s in space, what he needs to do, and what needs to be done to fix his problem. That all doesn’t mean that this film is a number one cinematic masterpiece. The pacing can get really slow, but also go too fast at the same time. There are some (not a lot of) moments that could get cut and would not change the plot and story all that much, and an example of this is in the recent FNAF 2 movie. You expect this Faz-Fest event to be where the main confrontation happens, but it ends up being meaningless in the end because the ending doesn’t happen there. It’s sometimes bombarded with montages, which kinda slows down the story. I will say, this is the best movie of this year so far, but it still needs its problems fixed to keep that award, especially with films like The Odyssey, Spiderman: Brand New Day, and Godzilla Minus Zero coming out later this year.
Conclusion
Project Hail Mary is quite a Fantastical Movie, a modern Sci-Fi classic if I will. However, I do think it suffers from the amount of montages and pacing problems. But is this movie actually worth seeing? Absolutely! If you are looking for a modern classic sci-fi movie, I’d choose this! Essentially, for fans of the book and Andy Weir.
