‘Project Hail Mary’ author Andy Weir is ‘really psyched’ about the sci-fi film’s epic first trailer (exclusive)
With over 400 million views and counting, it’s safe to say that the wondrous first trailer for directors Phil Lord & Chris Miller’s “Project Hail Mary” is a stellar hit.
“Project Hail Mary” is being adapted from the 2021 New York Times bestselling novel of the same name by Andy Weir (“The Martian,” “Artemis”). The upcoming sci-fi movie stars Ryan Gosling as 6th-grade science teacher and amnesiac astronaut Ryland Grace, who’s on a deep space rescue mission to save our sun and other stars from dying. En route to his destination in the Tau Ceti star system, Grace encounters an unlikely alien ally that helps to solve a cosmic mystery involving destructive spacefaring microbes called Astrophage.
We connected with Andy Weir after the fresh trailer dropped, who was on the “Project Hail Mary” set for the whole shoot, to hear his thoughts and impressions of this fantastic first teaser that has fans counting the days until it’s released by Amazon MGM Studios on March 20, 2026.
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“They showed it to me well in advance,” Weir tells Space.com. “I’m a producer on this film so I’m involved in giving notes and stuff this time so it’s kinda cool. It’s nice to pretend I’m a bigshot. But I was really psyched. I always try to put myself in the mind of the viewer for movie stuff or reader for book stuff and try to blank my mind and imagine I don’t know anything about the story.”
As with almost all Hollywood trailers these days, Weir laments how spoilerific it was, though. “I thought, ‘Oh, this trailer really does raise a lot of questions and make me curious and makes me want to see the film.’ That’s the point. Butts in seats. I was really happy with it. I wish they hadn’t shown quite as much of Rocky,” explains Weir.
“It’s totally cool to show that there’s going to be an alien because there’s no way to keep that under wraps, and it adds to the film’s appeal. But I’m glad they didn’t show him in all of his glory. You still have to go to the movie to see that.”
“Project Hail Mary” nails a particular haunting tone in this inspiring initial preview, paired with Harry Styles’ weepy emo anthem “Sign of the Times,” to evoke an experience that’s resonating with sci-fi fans all over the globe.
“Yeah, it definitely works,” he notes. “I don’t know the details of who chose the song and who made which decisions. I know the directors were deeply involved. And you can really see that kind of Lord and Miller color palette coming through in the trailer. They do like colors. They’re the “Spider-Verse” guys. They use them reasonably; it’s not some explosion of color in your face. But you can see it’s not just going to be everything on the spaceship is white and everything in space is black and white. Then, of course, we have Greig Fraser as the DP, and he does all these clever things in there. He makes these beautiful scenes, taking advantage of the natural light from Tau Ceti shining in through portals and windows. He’s an amazing talent.”
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On the subject of the Hail Mary’s spacecraft design and Rocky’s breathtaking Blip-A alien starship, Weir was suitably impressed by what the production team was able to conjure up on screen.
“They had to make it bigger than what’s depicted in the book, because in the book it’s very cramped and confined. In the movie, you need space for characters to move around and do things, so they just scaled up the whole Hail Mary. They changed its layout, but kept the idea of three main pillar-like Astrophage tanks and then the central area that has the pressure compartment with the crew. It’s a cool-looking ship. They did so much with practical effects. Whatever you see in the background, that was a set.”
“The Blip-A spaceship is just gorgeous. I don’t exactly have a very visual imagination. When I’m writing a story, the people and ships are just kind of blobs in my imagination. So if you said, ‘Hey, draw a picture of Rocky’s ship,’ I wouldn’t know what to do. They call it the Blip-A because that was the designation that the ship’s radar gave it. And Eridians don’t name their ships.”
Despite not having an idea for the aesthetics of the ship when he was writing the story, Weir’s input was heavily leaned on by the production. “
The directors and the art group asked if I had any guidance for them,” recalls Weir. “I said that the ship’s made out of Xenonite, so it should match the general feel and look of the Xenonite props. Beyond that, Xenonite is a kind of MacGuffin material with this incredible tensile strength. So it can be whatever shape you think looks cool. And it looks alien! The Hail Mary looks like something that the international space community of modern day would make. And the Blip-A does not look like that.”
Weir has already seen several cuts of the film as the directors were working on it, and he thinks they’ve really captured what he was after, especially in its reluctant hero, Ryland Grace.
“Ryan [Gosling] is funny,” he adds. “He’s got a good natural understanding of comedy and timing. He was really engaged, and he’d want to talk to me every day about scenes and what’s going through Grace’s mind. I was there for the shoot and on set all the time. That was really cool. I got to be a Hollywood mover and or a shaker. They actually offered to assign me an assistant. I said no, I don’t have enough for an assistant to do. There’s almost nothing more useless on a set than the writer. Although there was a lot more work for me to do than I expected. It was awesome.”
Screenwriting duties are being capably handled by Drew Goddard (“Cabin in the Woods,” “Cloverfield”), whose script for director Ridley Scott’s “The Martian” earned the scribe an Academy Award nomination. The impressive creative team also includes Oscar-winning cinematographer Greig Fraser (“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” “Dune,” “The Batman”) behind the camera.
Co-starring Ryan Gosling and Sandra Hüller, “Project Hail Mary” lands in theaters on March 20, 2026.
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