A five-legged alien who communicates using echolocation, a space-traveling teacher with amnesia, and an artificial biodome on a foreign planet: “Project Hail Mary” handed directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller exactly the kind of impossible problems they live for. The film follows Dr. Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling), a former molecular biologist turned middle school science teacher who wakes up alone aboard a ship in deep space with no memory of how he got there. He slowly recalls that he is part of a mission to save the sun from a cosmic organism that is killing it, threatening Earth and its inhabitants. He has to figure it out on his own—that is, until he meets a talkative extraterrestrial he names Rocky.
Based on the 2021 science fiction novel of the same name by Andy Weir, “Project Hail Mary” needed the right directors to do the adaptation proud—ones who could balance comedy and tension while keeping the whole thing stubbornly, genuinely hopeful. Luckily, Lord and Miller have spent their careers making films like “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” “The Lego Movie,” and “21 Jump Street,” which are funny, suspenseful, and uplifting enough for the whole family to enjoy. The sci-fi blockbuster opened to $80 million domestically and reminded audiences what it feels like to leave a theater with a bit of hope. Here’s how they did it (spoilers ahead).
Free the camera from gravity.
Animated films are made entirely from scratch. Whether it’s a lens flare, a costume detail, or the movement of the camera, every detail is a decision made. When you spend years making animated films like Lord and Miller have, that instinct doesn’t just go away. The duo jumped into this live-action film with the same mindset.
Rocky is the most obvious place where Lord and Miller’s animation experience shows up onscreen, but their background also fundamentally changed how they think about the camera. In the “Spider-Verse” films, characters can walk on walls and swing between buildings, freeing the camera from any fixed or logical orientation; the duo could point the camera anywhere from anywhere. They brought that same instinct to “Project Hail Mary.” Working with cinematographer Greig Fraser (“Dune: Part Two,” “The Batman”), the directors landed on a philosophy early on. “There’s no up or down in space,” Miller told Rolling Stone. “We should be freed of having to have our camera upright all the time.”
The opening scene of the film makes a clear case for this approach. Ryland emerges from a coma to find that all of his crewmates are dead. Amnesiac and alone, he stumbles through the ship, and the camera never quite lets the audience find their footing either. It shoots downward toward the floor—but wait, that’s the ceiling. A hatch opens into the wall—no, that’s the floor. With every shot, the direction of gravity feels more uncertain, and the audience’s experience mirrors Ryland’s disorientation.
Build characters through movement.
“Project Hail Mary” presented Lord and Miller with a particularly interesting challenge: How do you make an audience fall in love with something that has no face? Rocky has no eyes or mouth and speaks in pitchy, alien noises—exactly the kind of problem Lord told IndieWire “would be fun to spend five years solving.”
To solve it, the directors leaned again on their experience in animation, which Lord defined to IndieWire as “storytelling through movement.” Without eyes, a mouth, or a face, Rocky’s source of expression had to come from his body. As the only other character with Ryland in the space timeline, Rocky had to hook the audience into genuinely caring—otherwise the film carries no real stakes.
So the filmmakers, with designer Neal Scanlan, built a puppet to keep Rocky tactile and grounded in performance rather than CGI. The catch is that since Rocky isn’t conventionally cute in the way Baby Yoda or Stitch are, they needed a specific human touch behind his movement.
They found that in James Ortiz, a puppeteer who voiced and operated Rocky, who understood that the creature’s movements had to be informed by his character. He’s not just an alien, but an emotional being far from home on a lonely mission. Ortiz told Variety that he saw Rocky’s soul as that of a “little brother”—one who is always a little bit anxious and “really wants to be invited to the party.” Whether he’s scared of Ryland in their first interaction, eager to come aboard the spaceship, or wounded from saving his life, the audience can empathize with—and even care deeply about—what is essentially a moving body of rock.
Play into the strengths of your talent.
One of the film’s most memorable scenes wasn’t in the script at all; rather, it ended up in the final cut due to the directors’ willingness to trust their talent. On the eve before the team is sent into space, a party on an aircraft carrier ends with government agent Eva Stratt (Sandra Hüller) singing a karaoke cover of Harry Styles’ “Sign of the Times” (2017)—an iconic moment that was fully improvised.
During a location scout of the aircraft carrier, the crew found a karaoke machine, which worked its way into the scene. When Gosling pointed out the irony that Hüller (who had, maybe, the best voice on set) didn’t have a singing moment, the directors asked Hüller at the last minute if she would sing. She agreed, on one condition: She would choose the song.
Miller told Interview Magazine that during the first take, the rest of the cast didn’t know she was going to sing. The directors shot their genuine reactions first. The unscripted moment turned out to be huge in how the audience relates to Eva, helping set up her pragmatic betrayal later in the film. “It ended up being the heart of the movie and a crucial part of her character,” Miller said.
Make the film you want to see.
Words like “crowd-pleasing” and “sincere” followed “Project Hail Mary” throughout its release. But while it may seem like Lord and Miller created the movie with broad appeal in mind, they were simply seeking something they were personally drawn to: a sci-fi film that leaves viewers feeling optimistic after the credits roll.
This earnestness comes from a place of genuine taste and a desire for a type of movie that isn’t getting made. “These days, there are very few movies that are not animated that adults would go on a date night to, that people from 8 to 88 could enjoy,” Miller told NPR. “Things are either talked way down to for children, or they’re made extremely inappropriate for children. And there’s not much in between. And this is a movie special in that way in that it assumes its audience is intelligent. But we’ve seen families and kids watch this film also and be absolutely delighted.”
“We don’t really like to target a demographic,” Lord added. “We’re like—we’re not really strategic. We make movies for human beings and certain dogs.”
This mindset allowed the duo to make the film they wanted to see—one led by source material that made them “feel all of the feelings that are possible for a human to feel,” as Miller explained. Sincerity may not be everyone’s cup of tea. But sincerity in service of a story that uplifts its audience is an approach that’s simply been missing from cinemas for a while, and the success of “Project Hail Mary” proves there are plenty of film fans who have been hungry for it.
