New Project Hail Mary Trailer Teases Ryland Grace and the Rocky Road to Saving the Sun

Ryan Gosling floats through space as stars flash past like lightning bugs on a hot summer night. This film is an adaptation of Andy Weir’s 2021 novel Project Hail Mary and will be released in US theaters on March 20, 2026. Gosling plays Ryland Grace, a middle school science teacher who is dragged from his classroom and forced to take the riskiest gamble of his life.

Grace awakens on his own aboard the Hail Mary, a sleek high-tech probe destined for the Tau Ceti system, 12 light years from Earth. He has amnesia, but a few pieces of the puzzle start to fall into place: a dying sun, crop failures all around the world, and some really bright people scrambling to find out what’s going on. The teaser focuses on that initial feeling of confusion, with Gosling’s Grace bumbling around in zero gravity, his breath fogging up the camera as he tries to figure out what’s going on. As the Hail Mary arrives at Tau Ceti, it collides with another spacecraft formed of scraps. That’s when you meet Rocky, a rock-skinned alien who adds some depth to the film.

Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the creators behind Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’s cartoon wizardry, manage to make this interplanetary, larger-than-life affair feel quite intimate and down-to-earth. Greig Fraser, who created the polished visuals in Dune and The Batman, makes the Hail Mary’s interior feel lived-in and a touch shady, with cool blues and harsh fluorescent lighting that makes you feel like you’re right there with the protagonists, even while they’re floating in mid-air. It’s all shot in IMAX quality, so you’ll have to watch it on the largest screen imaginable.

Drew Goddard’s script, based on his work on The Martian, for example, maintains Andrew Weir’s balance of science and humor while not losing sight of the human element. Grace’s quip about his qualifications (“I’m the one who puts the ‘not’ in astronaut”) served a purpose: to lighten the mood as he tries to figure out the intricacies of xenobiology on the fly. And the supporting cast is not lost in the shuffle; Sandra Hüller plays the no-nonsense project lead Eva Stratt, for example, who simply understands how to approve a crazy idea like sending an astronaut on a one-way trip to a distant planet.