Ryan Gosling’s New Movie Is A Unique Riff On The Sci-Fi Space Adventure

Ryan Gosling is one of the last great movie stars we have, and he proves it by making himself at home in any genre. Gosling’s great in comedies, competent in action, and divine in drama. But the actor apparently has a soft spot for science fiction. Blade Runner 2049 is one of his best performances, and while Damien Chazelle’s First Man didn’t exactly lift off at the box office, Gosling has a few more attempts on the horizon. He surprised Star Wars fans by boarding Shawn Levy’s upcoming project in that faraway galaxy, but Gosling is first set to star in a story set relatively close to home.

In Project Hail Mary, the Oscar-nominated Gosling teams up with two Oscar-winning directors, Phil Lord and Chris Miller, to deliver a new riff on the classic interstellar adventure. The film is based on the novel by Andy Weir, the best-selling author of The Martian, and the first trailer teases the kind of genre mash-up both the actor and the Spider-Verse directors are known for, blending physical comedy with serious space science.

Project Hail Mary feels like a blend of our generation’s most interesting sci-fi films. There are parallels to Mickey 17 in Gosling’s goofy, unassuming everyman, Ryland Grace. A teacher with very little physical training, he finds his world flipped upside down when he’s handpicked to join an urgent mission to space, not unlike Interstellar’s Joseph Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), because he might be the only human capable of saving the world.

The sun is dying (kinda like in Sunshine), as are all the stars in Earth’s galaxy. Only one, 11.9 light years away, is immune to this strange infection, but no one knows why. The head of the European Space Agency, Eva Stratt (Sandra Hüller), wants Ryland to travel there and use his doctorate in molecular biology to solve the problem.

What begins as a straightforward mission is soon complicated by some mysterious twists. Not unlike The Martian, Ryland has to fend for himself and navigate space alone, and Hail Mary throws everything — even an alien encounter — at him. While Weir’s Martian largely kept its hero on Mars, the scope of Hail Mary is far more ambitious, but its star power and sense of humor should elevate a traditional sci-fi tale into realms unknown.

Project Hail Mary hits theaters on March 20, 2026.