The big holiday releases are still waiting in the wings, but it’s not too soon to look forward to what’s coming in 2026. Amazon MGM Studios has released a new trailer for its forthcoming space odyssey Project Hail Mary, which is based on Andy Weir’s (The Martian) bestselling 2021 novel about an amnesiac biologist-turned-schoolteacher in space.
Weir told The New York Times that the inspiration for his novel came from a planned multi-book space opera called Zhek that he began writing after The Martian, about a potential fuel for interstellar travel. He eventually abandoned that effort and wrote the 2017 novel, Artemis, instead, but aspects of Zhek found their way into the Project Hail Mary novel.
As we’ve previously reported, Amazon MGM Studios acquired the rights for Weir’s novel before it was even published and brought on Drew Goddard to write the screenplay. (Goddard also wrote the adapted screenplay for The Martian, so he’s an excellent choice.) The studio tapped Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, The LEGO Movie) to direct and signed on Ryan Gosling to star. Per the official premise:
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.
In addition to Gosling, the cast includes Sandra Huller as head of the Hail Mary project and Ryland’s superior; Milana Vayntrub as project astronaut Olesya Ilyukhina; Ken Leung as project astronaut Yao Li-Jie; Liz Kingsman as Shapiro; Orion Lee as Xi; and James Ortiz as a new life form Ryland names Rocky.
The first trailer was released in June and racked up a whopping 400 million views worldwide in its first week. The footage—which included Ryland discovering an alien ship inhabited by the aforementioned Rocky—gave every indication of following Weir’s novel pretty closely. That’s very good news for Weir fans, which includes several of us here at Ars.
The new trailer is set to snippets of “Champagne Supernova” by Oasis and opens with Ryland making first contact with Rocky. We then get a series of flashbacks of Ryland being recruited for the project. As with the stranded protagonist of The Martian, Ryland must survive in isolation while recording his efforts for posterity.
Fortunately, he has Rocky’s help. “So, I met an alien,” he says in one such recording. “He’s a genius engineer and if I can’t understand what he’s saying, he puts on a little puppet show for me and my tiny brain. And you know what? I don’t mind it.” Rocky’s planet is also dying, and together, they have to figure out how to “save stars.” Our money’s on the pair succeeding—and if we’re wish-casting, maybe even ushering in a golden age of interstellar cooperation.
Project Hail Mary hits theaters on March 20, 2026.
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