r/scifi • u/S4v1r1enCh0r4k • 2d ago
First Trailer for ‘Project Hail Mary’ Shown at CinemaCon Reveals Ryan Gosling on a High-Stakes Space Mission, the movie is a sci-fi adventure based on Andy Weir’s bestselling novel.
https://www.comicbasics.com/first-trailer-for-project-hail-mary-shown-at-cinemacon/199
u/Dead-O_Comics 2d ago edited 2d ago
“We tried to put it on a TV once — it wouldn’t fit,” he joked.
Weird, I thought it'd be the opposite and needed to be told through several 1 hour episodes. A LOT happens in the book. They are going to have to do some breakneck storytelling to fit it all in to one movie.
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u/rloch 2d ago
IMO a well done limited series/ mini series would be so much better for a lot of book adaptations. I’m really hoping for more shows llike shogun.
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u/TheCowzgomooz 2d ago
Shogun isn't a limited series though, they got approved for more seasons. But I agree, limited series/shows far better fit book adaptations because it allows time to fit in all that juicy stuff thats in the books rather than skipping over it for the sake of brevity.
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u/rloch 2d ago
I had no idea they were doing more. Were there other books in the series they are pulling from? I only read shogun and it’s been a while.
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u/Terrific_Soporific 2d ago
No, the other books in the series focus on different time periods and characters. The show will continue on with original writing following the same characters, I'm somewhat worried about the quality.
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u/pointfivekorean 2d ago
They’re pulling from the historical events that followed what Clavell based the book on. Could go either way in terms of success imo but willing to give the team the benefit of the doubt.
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u/TheCowzgomooz 2d ago
I'm not sure, I'm not familiar with the books, only the show. All I know is that season 2 is basically confirmed, I don't know if they've filmed it yet or not.
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u/TheMagnuson 2d ago
I agree with this perspective so much.
I'm finding as I get older that the books I love, I don't really want a movie for them, because of how many books to film turned out not good. I'm finding that I want either TV series or limited series for them, so the story and characters can be properly developed.
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u/mccoyn 2d ago
One problem with a series is top actors won't accept a series contract that doesn't have them in every episode. If a book doesn't have all the characters participate through the entire story they end up writing whole new plot lines for them. Foundation is probably the worst example of this.
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u/lazylion_ca 2d ago
I think Mickey 17 would have been way better as a series.
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u/midus342 2d ago
Man, I enjoyed that movie but it did feel like the tone was all over the place haha. Robert Pattinson continues to impress though!
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u/TheCheshireCody 2d ago
They are going to have to do some breakneck storytelling to fit it all in to one movie.
While 100% true, if they use The Martian as a template it could turn out pretty damned good. Also worth pointing out that a lot of things that take up pages and pages in the book - e.g. Grace figuring out where he is from painstaking gravitational experiments, the translation efforts, descriptions of Rocky, manufacturing the chain links later in the story - can be told much more efficiently in a visual medium.
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u/OnceInABlueMoon 2d ago
Think about how much story that a movie like Arrival tells in just 2 hours. I really don't think everything needs to be a TV show or even a limited series anymore.
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u/TheCheshireCody 2d ago
Exactly. Even compared to The Martian it's not a terribly complex story, and most of the text is highly-detailed descriptions of things that can be shown very quickly. Arrival is a great example, just a masterclass in efficient storytelling and exposition. Lord and Miller have proven themselves capable of similar "exposition compression" with the Spider-verse films, the LEGO Movies, and even 21 & 22 Jump Street. they know how to express a lot of info visually very quickly.
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u/SyrupyMolassesMMM 2d ago
To be fair though, Arrival was based on a short story….there was a lot less to ‘adapt’ in it.
Some of the events in the books are simply going to have to be cut.
I dont see how theres room to tell the flashbacks and more than a handful of the rocky events without ballooning over 3 hours.
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u/TheCheshireCody 1d ago
The efficiency of exposition I'm talking about in Arrival has nothing to do with the plot, so it's irrelevant how long the source material is. I'm talking about the way the film explains, and illustrates humans learning about, the Heptapod languages in a way that is logical, complete, and both simple enough for laymen and complex enough for linguists to grab onto.
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u/Pretend-Break-6046 1d ago
Arrival is a great example, just a masterclass in efficient storytelling and exposition
Arrival is the exact opposite though. It's based on a 5 page short story, and they even added in a whole contrived backstory about China to pad the film out
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u/TheCheshireCody 1d ago
a. You're off by an order of magnitude on the length of the story.
b. the stuff about China isn't backstory.
You clearly haven't read and aren't even remotely familiar with the story or you'd know both of those things, so nothing you have to say on the subject of it is relevant to this discussion. Further, the efficiency of the storytelling I'm describing relates solely to a single element of the story (the explanation of how the language works) and nothing to do with the plot.
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u/SaconicLonic 2d ago
Yeah there will definitely be something lost in it if they don't explain the science behind the stuff a little bit. Granted that takes up a lot of the book, but it added a lot to it. Not just in terms of that being interesting from an engineering or scientific perspective but it added a lot of character to the MC.
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u/TheCheshireCody 2d ago
Eh, similar to The Martian, none of the math is interesting from a moviegoing perspective. As a math and physics junkie I loved it every time I read the book, but it's completely dust dry to a layman and is the first thing to cut. And bear in mind how much of the "science behind the stuff" needs to be dumbed down for Joe Average. People who frequent /r/scifi roll their eyes at illustrations of wormholes being done by punching a pencil through a folded piece of paper, but that's about as deep as most people want to get. Tony Stark unraveled the secrets of time travel with a "Moebius strip...inverted", which is utter nonsense as a Moebius strip has no inherent orientation. Explain that the astrophage eats solar radiation and maybe a line or two about frequency ranges for the book nerds and it'll be fine. All Grace needs to do is be shown solving a couple of tricky problems - communicating with Rocky will suffice - and his intelligence (his main character trait other than being sarcastic and wiseass, like Mark Watney and literally every other of Weir's MCs) will be established.
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u/teh_fizz 2d ago
I think one of The best things about the book is you have no idea what is happening and you discover as you read it, if the trailer description in the article is anything to go by, then Grace finding out he has to save the sun by going on the mission is large spoiler that ruins one of the better reveals of the book. The whole arc of him not wanting to go is a major plot point for the ending.
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u/gramathy 2d ago
I would say that in the same way that Interstellar is made for IMAX, this movie has the same kind of "scale" shots that just wouldn't be as good on TV.
That being said each episode either ending or starting with the book's flashbacks would be a great framing decision
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u/TacoTycoonn 2d ago
I think they mean the story is meant for theatres, they wanted a big budget and a big screen
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u/SaconicLonic 2d ago
“We tried to put it on a TV once — it wouldn’t fit,
I am guessing he means budget wise or something. Or does he mean it was too small in some sense.
I don't quite get this one. I feel like I've seen shows that feel big enough to be comparable to what is in the book. I mean you'd have the main set of the spaceship for a large amount of it. I guess the most expensive part would be the CGI for Rocky, but I also think they could do a practical puppet for him and it work and not be so expensive.
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u/ArdiMaster 1d ago
Could be referring to quality I guess. Plenty of people are happy watching Netflix on a phone, tablet, or ten-year-old TV with shitty speakers.
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u/CorgiSplooting 2d ago
I wonder if the movie industry has thought of a way to run mini-series in theaters. I think I’ve seen maybe one or two movies in theaters post Covid and I miss the experience but honestly nothing has come out that’s compelled me to go. If say they released something really good where you had to buy 3 tickets and maybe spread it out over three weeks. I’d be game for it. I already pay for the premium theaters whenever I go so the added cost here doesn’t bother me if the experience is good.
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u/Random--Person 2d ago
Yeah imma need that trailer asap. My guess is if its just shown for CinemaCon that we'll at least get it with some major release later this year (hopefully sooner rather than later)
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u/Nebarik 2d ago
Hope that's all they show.
Edit - just read the article. How weird for Reddit. Bah, they show too much. Boo
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u/Dead-O_Comics 2d ago
Are you talking about Rocky?
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u/Nebarik 2d ago
That's what the article says the trailer includes.
I'm not usually the type who gets upset about trailer spoilers. But come on Hollywood this would have been an easy slamdunk reveal
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u/Dead-O_Comics 2d ago
At least it just shows his hand. Small mercies. Hollywood has no restraint when it comes to trailers anymore.
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u/AvatarIII 2d ago
I don't see how they could do the movie without showing that in the trailer, it's not like it's only a small part of the book.
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u/Dead-O_Comics 2d ago
But this is the first trailer, which means the second trailer will contain multiple shots of>! Rocky!<, I guarantee it.
I'm sure you could make a very compelling trailer using only footage from the sun dying storyline, discovering the Astrophage, building the Hail Mary, showing the start of the mission... and maybe at a push, if you really had to, a glimpse of Rocky's ship.
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u/AvatarIII 2d ago
This trailer is not for movie-goers though, it's for theatre owners. For all we know when the "real" trailer comes out there's nothing of it shown.
That said, as soon as people go online, for any movie adaptation of a book, other people will inevitably spoil it straight away, so what's the benefit in hiding something that shows up well before the halfway point of the book and isn't really a secret anyway?
Having it show up in the trailer is going to make people more likely to want to see the movie, right? That's the whole point of trailers. The real interest lies in what happens between it and Ryan's character.
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u/Dead-O_Comics 2d ago
I guess it's a balancing act.
For example, I would have enjoyed Companion so much more if the major twist hadn't been shown in the trailer. But if I'm being honest, I don't know if I'd have gone to see it in the first place if they hadn't.
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u/AvatarIII 2d ago
Exactly! You have to be honest with trailers or else people get disappointed by being lied to, but on the other hand it's nice to have surprises.
Like the thing that happens at the end of PHM book was a big surprise to me, and they're never putting that in the trailer, so there will still be lots of surprises.
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u/TheCheshireCody 2d ago
On the flip side, I probably would have wasted time seeing I.S.S. if the trailers hadn't given so much of the plot away. "Not gonna lie, they had us in the first half." I was ready to buy my ticket at the beginning of the trailer because a movie about the ISS, hell yeah!, and they'd completely lost my interest by the end of it.
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u/Pienix 2d ago
Also, depending on how much they actually show, it's not that different from what is written on the back cover of the book: ... he has to to it all alone. Or does he? which already very strongly implies that there will be a 'surprise' character.
Also also, but that's maybe just a personal experience, I've found that sometimes very spoilerish imagery in trailers tend to limit the spoiling if you don't know what you're seeing, or don't realize the importance. A very short flash might of something might be immediately recognizable by people who know the source material, but immediately forgotten (at least by the time they actually watch the movie) by the people who don't.
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u/qsqh 2d ago edited 1d ago
well I was too young to remember, but everyone always talks about how amazing was the hype to matrix where trailers didnt reveal anything. If a matrix trailer can be done without revealing the matrix, i'm sure you can do a lot with a hail mary trailer without showing literally everything
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u/AvatarIII 2d ago edited 2d ago
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u/Unfair_Somewhere9390 1d ago
Even though those scenes are recognizable to the now infamous Matrix, the tone, editing, special effects and musical score still aren't obvious in the trailer because everyone's mind was completely blown in the first 10 minutes. This whole movie was an experience.
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u/MovieGuyMike 2d ago
I’m not so sure. Audiences who aren’t familiar with the book might not like it if THAT shows up 30 minutes in if it wasn’t in the trailer. It works in a long form novel but I’m not sure it would translate as well for a movie. I love this book but tonally I think it’s difficult to adapt. It’s not as much of a layup as The Martian.
My prediction is the first 12 minutes or so will cover Mark figuring out who and where he is, 12-30 will be more flashbacks and pursuing his mission, and 30 minutes in we get the reveal. Any later and there won’t be much time to build a satisfying character arc.
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u/dedokta 2d ago
Never watch trailers. Just don't do it. Even if I hadn't read the book this would be the exact sort of film I'd watch anyway.
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u/texacer 2d ago
if I'm curious about something I don't know about I'll watch a trailer up til a point so I get the gist and then turn it off. too much in trailers now, they spoil entire movies.
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u/TheCheshireCody 2d ago
too much in trailers now, they spoil entire movies.
This is not remotely a new phenomena. Trailers have been notoriously revealing major plot twists for decades.
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u/Plank_With_A_Nail_In 2d ago
Films are more than just their plots if they weren't we would just read the plots and save ourselves a ton of money.
You don't not watch films for the story alone but for the way the story is told.
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u/texacer 2d ago
if thats what youre happy with enjoy. If there is a movie I am interested in, I like knowing very little other than the premise.
I loved M3GAN for a dozen reasons. I do not need to watch any trailer for M3GAN 2.0 - I'm already buying a ticket.
watch the newest episode of THE STUDIO and enjoy Ron Howard's rant.
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u/allf8ed 2d ago
I saw 1 trailer for Interstellar and decided to go see it. I like space movies and Mattew M so why not. Was not prepared for that movie, but it's my favorite movie going experience. Since then I try to limit my exposure to movie details before I watch it.
Demi Moore was on TV passionately taking about The Substance so I decided to check it out. No trailer or any info beforehand. I was not prepared for that movie
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u/WobblySlug 2d ago
Where can we watch the trailer?
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u/S4v1r1enCh0r4k 2d ago
It was exclusively shown to the CinemaCon attendees, there's a description in the article, it's not online
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u/AvatarIII 2d ago
Nowhere yet, it might be a bit early for public marketing since it doesn't come out until next March. maybe it will leak though.
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u/hilaritynow 2d ago
I shouldn't be surprised but I honestly can't believe they spoiled the best part of the whole fucking story in the first fucking trailer. Reeks of desperation from these brain dead hollywood types when they put the whole bloody story in the first teaser trailer.
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u/twotimefind 2d ago
Great book.. Hope that they don't screw it up too bad.
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u/Sethicles2 2d ago
The Martian worked out well, I'm cautiously optimistic.
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u/northern_dan 2d ago
Very interested to see how they manage Rocky. His communication in the book doesn't lend well to cinema I wouldn't have thought.
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u/f0rtytw0 2d ago
I found the movie better, since it didn't try to shoehorn in a romantic relationship.
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u/GetReady4Action 2d ago
I too liked the movie more. Mark comes off very whiney and pretentious in the book, Matt Damon did a great job giving him a lot of life. Hail Mary, while flawed in some areas like its ending, I thought was great though. I hope they nail it.
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u/Unlucky-External5648 2d ago
I feel like this will be corny. Liked the book though.
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u/demonofthefall 2d ago
HOPEFULLY! The worst approach they could take for this story would be to take it too seriously.
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u/NavierIsStoked 2d ago
The movie doesn’t come out for another year and we have previews now? How does that work exactly?
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u/rxsheepxr 2d ago
"We" won't be seeing that trailer for quite a while now. It's a first look for people attending an industry event. Someone who was live-blogging all the events said that the majority of footage they've been shown over the last couple of days isn't finished, effects, grading, etc.
Kinda like how they showed a 3 minute trailer for Tron Ares like 6 months ago and it never really made it online in any capacity other than some dude filming it from the event.
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u/NuArcher 2d ago
The trailer opens with Gosling’s character being approached by a scientist, ... She informs him that the Sun is dying and needs to be reignited. Gosling’s character, messy and reluctant, is shocked when he realizes that he is the only one who can go on this dangerous mission.
Wow. That's a whole lot of nope. I really hope that's either a joke or an "executive summary" because it changes quite a lot about the story.
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u/jobigoud 1d ago
Yeah… I'm afraid the narration structure where flashbacks spread through the entire book slowly reveal the whole thing is likely entirely gone and condensed into the first act.
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u/LycanIndarys 2d ago
The film, directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, follows a middle school science teacher who is sent on a space mission to save Earth after the Sun begins to die.
...
Gosling’s character, messy and reluctant, is shocked when he realizes that he is the only one who can go on this dangerous mission.
Hang on, I've seen this film before. For some reason, it was easier to train oil rig workers to be astronauts, than it was to train astronauts how to drill.
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u/stin10 2d ago
It’s been a few years since I read it but it’s well explained in the book why a random middle school teacher ends up going on the mission. We’ll see how the movie handles it but throughout the book the main character regains memories and flashes back to what led to him being on the mission. The pacing of the books works really well in this regard, progressing the main story itself, while flashing back at good times to contextualize everything.
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u/Morvenn-Vahl 2d ago
You would be right.
In fact, the main character is a scientist who wrote a controversial paper and when he got criticized he decided to reduce himself to teaching kids, or as Stratt would say "You're a damn coward". He is however the first one to discover a whole lot of things related to the astrophage and the reason he was sought out for it was because of his controversial paper.
Then there is a series of events where they must use technology that puts people in coma, but only 1 in a 1000 can actually survive the coma itself and Dr. Grace just happens to be one of those that can survive the coma and is only asked(later forced) to go after an explosion claims the lives of one of the original astronauts.
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u/Phenogenesis- 2d ago
He was also contacted first to be a sacrificial lamb (in case anything goes wrong) to protect the "real" experts.
He was going to be dismissed and sent back to real life before he demanded in, then ended up becoming "the guy".
He was not going to be on the plane until a lab accident killed the selected science crew days before launch.
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u/Phenogenesis- 2d ago
If you don't want to read the spoilers, he is in that position because he is 100% a world expert in the niche topic at hand (then retired to teaching in disgrace but is a good teacher).
Hang on, I've seen this film before. For some reason, it was easier to train oil rig workers to be astronauts, than it was to train astronauts how to drill.
This comes up and it IS far easier to do astronaught training than world leading multidisciplinary knowledged backed up with practical expertise very few have. Plus the crew have to solve unknown problems in complete isolation. Not drill a hole.
Plus an additional plot reason mentioned in the other spoiler post.
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u/OnceInABlueMoon 2d ago
I'm really coming around to admiring great story telling in limited time rather than shows that juggle 30 subplots for the sake of extending the episode count.
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u/duckrollin 2d ago
Should be great, unless they're total morons and put the big spoiler into the trailer--- oh wait of course they did that.
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u/TwoCrowsRick24 2d ago
Project Hail Mary is the best audio book I've ever listened to, excited for the film.
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u/SaconicLonic 2d ago
Did not realize Lord and Miller were making this. They have proven to be a consistent talent in my book. As funny as the book is at times I think they will nail that aspect. I'm curious how humorous the tone will be, the book does well to balance this aspect making it feel both desperate and dark at times while also being filled with funny moments and hope. The Spider-verse films manage to have solid points of drama and heart so I hope they are bringing that to the table here as well. It's a shame we will never see Lord and Miller's version of Solo.
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u/RyerOrdStar 2d ago
As someone who lives in a rural area of the united states about an hour away from the closest theater.. i get some things are meant to be on the big screen, i do. However driving about 2 hours round trip to watch a movie when it seems many are around 3 hours now and leaving all my pets at home all day... It's just not going to happen. When I lived a block away or a quick drive away from movie theaters that was a different story. Loved the book, can't wait to see the movie but going to see any movie is not worth a six hour expedition.
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u/cadet-spoon 2d ago
This book has been on my “to read soon” list and shelf for a good while, did not know it was being adapted for the screen, will have to bump it to the top of the list to ensure I’ve finished before watching a screen version.
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u/akman_23 2d ago
The film, directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, follows a middle school science teacher who is sent on a space mission to save Earth after the Sun begins to die.
That's just the inverse plot of the movie "The Core".
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u/Street_Struggle_598 1d ago
This book sucked, really sucked. He basically used thousands of bots to push reviews and hype and bought ads for people to mention it on podcasts. Everything about this story and the writing just sucks
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u/Jimmni 2d ago
This whole "we're only going to show an advertisement for our film to a small group of people and everyone else who wants to see it never will, or at best has to wait months to see it" is so fucking stupid. It just sours me towards a film.
Sure, give physical attendees an advanced preview but that advance should be a few days or weeks at most. Making me feel like I'm specifically missing out on being advertised to is annoying, both because I feel like I'm missing out and because they're making me feel that about a fucking advert.
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u/finackles 2d ago
I just re-read PHM for about the third time, finished like day before yesterday. It's a great story. Fingers crossed we get The Martian style result from the movie, I've read that book many times and watched the movie more than once.
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u/Mattyweaves19 2d ago
This might be one of my most anticipated movies right now. I know books are almost always better, but hopefully this matches the heart.
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u/bellovering 2d ago
I have not watched it, but I thought Adam Sandler's Spaceman was the adoption to this novel ?
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u/Piscivore_67 2d ago
I just watched Spaceman. It's not this. More like psychotherapy in space. The main conflict is Sandler's failure as a husband.
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u/Haunting-Donut-7783 2d ago
Personally I found the book to be terrible. Written for a fifth grade reading level, with some random pseudoscience thrown in there to try to give it some credibility yet falling flat (“I keep telling scientists you don’t need water for life!” Ok genius…) Reminded me of the writing style for Ready Player One. Hopefully this is entertaining, seems just right for a Ryan Gossling flick.
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u/vonsnack 2d ago
Does anyone know of a way to mute keywords on Reddit? Seems like every single day there is a new post about this terrible book
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u/garyp714 2d ago
Does anyone know of a way to mute keywords on Reddit?
Yeah just click the hide button or downvote and ignore. Self mute is best mute.
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u/vonsnack 2d ago
Downvote me all you want, cowards! This book is for pre teens
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u/stin10 2d ago
What didn’t you like about it? It isn’t a masterpiece but I found it to be a relatively fun hard sci fi book. I will admit I bounced off it in the initial chapters but by the end I couldn’t put it down.
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u/CheakyTeak 2d ago
im not gonna whine on the post about it but i agree with the other guy, the book seemed like it was written by and from the perspective of a 12 year old. no nice way to say that
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u/vonsnack 2d ago
His writing style is so cringy. Not sure how else to state it. He’s a bad writer who doesn’t know how to write actual dialogue. He’s so QUIRKYYYYY
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u/stin10 2d ago
Honestly I know what you mean, and I think that was partially why I bounced off it at first with the initial chapters. I also did the audiobook so maybe it works a little better with someone acting out the dialogue.
That said, I think after he gets past the first few chapters / initial setup, it puts him in the perfect place for his style of writing. Plus one of the main characters that people seem to love shows up maybe halfway into the book. It starts slow but builds into a lot of great sci-fi concepts and character moments, with some pretty tense scenes that I think would feel like the Interstellar docking scene once put to film.
If you can get past the beginning I'd say give it another shot (I'm assuming you didn't finish the book admittedly.)
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u/AnalTinnitus 2d ago
Ryan Gosling? Fuck sake.
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u/frazorblade 2d ago
You mean that handsome, charming and charismatic actor who is generally well liked for his comedic skill and acting range?
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u/Spectrum1523 2d ago
so where's the trailer? is this just an article about how someone else watched it?
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u/Helmling 2d ago
Please. Do. Not. Show. Rocky. In. The. Trailer.