Before he joins Shawn Levy for a trip through the Star Wars galaxy in Starfighter, Ryan Gosling is already buckling up for another ride into the cosmos with Project Hail Mary. Amazon and MGM clearly want this to be their big sci-fi moment. Justin Kroll from Deadline even hinted that an early screening had Oscar chatter swirling… and everyone assumed he meant this movie.
The footage reveals Gosling as Ryland Grace, a middle-school science teacher who wakes up alone on a spacecraft with amnesia and a homework assignment bigger than anything that’s ever hit Earth: fix the dying sun. Sure, no pressure. It leans into the survival smarts that made Andy Weir’s The Martian such a hit. Drew Goddard, who already earned an Oscar nomination adapting Weir once, wrote the script.
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller sit in the director’s chairs. Yes, the same duo once fired from Solo: A Star Wars Story and still best known for gifts like 22 Jump Street, The LEGO Movie, and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. They’re usually the class clowns pushing genre boundaries, but this Project Hail Mary trailer plays everything straight and dramatic. The jokes are gone. The stakes are massive. You might wonder if they’re subverting expectations or proving they can play it dead serious. Either way, Amazon MGM wants a hit on March 20, 2026.
If the visuals look extra slick, credit Greig Fraser behind the camera. He’s the guy responsible for Dune, The Batman, and pretty much every movie that makes you whisper “wow” in a dark theater. Fraser has talked about anchoring scale with human figures. He once explained, “We cannot comprehend scale without some other point of reference.” Considering Gosling spends a chunk of the movie floating alone, Fraser’s job gets trickier. The trailer flashes IMAX-ready spectacle along with intimate panic—exactly what a deep-space thriller needs.
The cast looks great. Sandra Hülle plays Eva Stratt. Milana Vayntrub, Ken Leung, Lionel Boyce, Liz Kingsman, and Orion Lee are also here. Then there’s James Ortiz as Rocky, an alien.
Ryan Gosling already nailed the quiet astronaut thing in First Man, but he’s clearly playing a very different character in Project Hail Mary. I’m praying it’s a lot more fun. Watch the trailer below.
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