Ryan Gosling Says Project Hail Mary Has Grown Men in Tears

The new sci-fi film Project Hail Mary is leaving grown men in tears — and Ryan Gosling is all for it.

Project Hail Mary is shaping up to be that rare sci-fi crowdpleaser everyone actually agrees on. Early reactions are already tossing around phrases like first great blockbuster of 2026, and Ryan Gosling is fanning the flames with a buzzy Saturday Night Live hosting gig that turned into a full-on laugh break mid-sketch. He is also out there talking about the movie in a way that makes it sound bigger, stranger, and more emotional than your average space mission.

The hook: a dying sun, a desperate plan

Gosling plays Ryland Grace, a molecular biologist who left the lab for a middle school classroom, only to get pulled back for the worst possible reason. The sun is dimming. Not just ours, either — a bunch of stars in the neighborhood are losing power, and if nobody figures out why, humanity is cooked. Ryland ends up on a last-ditch deep-space assignment, headed to the one star that seems to be resisting whatever is draining the rest.

Out there, he runs into someone else on the same case: a hyper-competent, spider-like alien engineer he names Rocky. Yes, the stakes are existential and span more than one world. But the core of the movie is this odd-couple bond between two beings who should not be able to connect and somehow do.

Gosling on what Ryland needed — and didn’t see coming

Asked what Rocky gives Ryland that he did not know he was missing, Gosling did not go for the tech-speak. He went straight for the heart:

'I think he has somebody to die for. You know, he has a lot of connections in the movie, but he never quite has a connection that deep. It is like friendship on a cosmic level.'

That bond, apparently, is wrecking people in the best way. Gosling has been hearing the same post-screening report on repeat, and he seems delighted by it:

'I keep hearing the term, like, grown men crying. Grown men were crying. As though if you are a grown man, that is a novel thing. But it is true: there is such an emotional component to this that is the heart of the movie.'

Why the hype actually makes sense

The film adapts Andy Weir’s novel, and if that name rings a bell, it is because he also wrote The Martian — the 2015 hit that paired plausible-science thrills with a very human survival story. If Project Hail Mary hits the same wavelength, the early 'masterpiece' chatter tracks.

The Lord & Miller factor

Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are directing, and here is the sideways surprise: they have not helmed a feature since 2014’s one-two punch of The Lego Movie and 22 Jump Street. They have been anything but idle — their fingerprints are all over the Into the Spider-Verse run as producers — but this is their first time back in the director’s chair in over a decade. Given their knack for mixing brains, heart, and big entertainment value, them taking on a high-concept space epic with an oddball best-friends story baked in feels like a strong match.

Who is on this ship

• Ryan Gosling as Ryland Grace, a scientist-turned-teacher hurled into a last-chance mission
• Sandra Hüller
• Lionel Boyce
• Ken Leung
• James Ortiz as the voice and lead puppeteer for Rocky, the spider-like alien engineer
• Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller
• Based on the novel by Andy Weir

Release date

Project Hail Mary lands in theaters on Friday, March 20, 2026. If the current temperature holds, bring tissues. Apparently, that is not just a marketing line.