“Project Hail Mary” is bringing audiences to movie theaters in numbers the industry hasn’t seen for a non-franchise film since “Oppenheimer.” The science fiction epic starring Ryan Gosling earned around $80.5 million in ticket sales in its first weekend playing in North America, according to studio estimates Sunday. Box office tracker EntTelligence estimates that translates into about 5 million ticket buyers.
Went and saw it. Despite “Rocky” being a little bro to the Galaxy Quest Rock Monster and kinda being cheesy with the “coos” and decidedly un-alien thought processes that were very human…
It was a relief to watch and enjoy.
Not dark, not apocalyptic like supervillains bent on world destruction, not yet another rehash of a franchise or live action reboot.
I was glad to see it. A decent, feel-good original movie.
Amaze!
Because its actually good and has real humans. Listen up Hollywood.
Read the book, but the audiobook is so much better.
This movie wasn’t on my radar at all. After seeing Adam Savage talking about the production, I definitely want to see it.
I read and enjoyed the book, but the movie improved on some story beats and trimmed some sciencey stuff that wouldn’t have translated well to the screen. Pretty great adaptation.
If you’re considering watching it, do try to avoid the trailers for it. I understand that you have to market the story, but introducing things in ads that should have been delightful surprises kinda stinks.
I managed to avoid the trailers and just caught some pre-release hype which motivated me to go see it. I didn’t read the book so I can’t compare the film to the book. It’s definitely one of the best movies I’ve seen. I really enjoyed it.
I went to a 9pm Thursday showing and the theatre was probably 3/4 full which I haven’t seen in a general screening in a long time, definitely since the pandemic.
I managed to avoid all trailers, bought tickets for the family, got to our seats and guess what was showing in the early trailers? That’s right, clips from the movie spoiling Rocky and giving stupid facts.
Like WTF?
Don’t show promotional material for the movie you’re already in, let alone spoilery ones
I’ve read the book a billion times, it’s so damn good, (listened to it ray porter is amazing in everything he reads) and watched the trailer and yea…they spoil the hell out of the big surprise. Like damn…
I was trying to abstain from the trailer. I was watching a live episode of Saturday night live when it cut to commercial- the project Hail Mary trailer. They showed Rocky in the first 5 seconds! I was pissed off. I had to quiet my rage at 11:30 pm while my wife and kid were sleeping. I hate movie trailers
Rocky isn’t even the biggest twist, tho.
With the books, between the Martian, and PHM, which do you think was the better one?
The martian is the better book. It’s one of the best examples of “science applied to problems” I’ve read. Unfortunately the movie did it a dirty, and cut out a lot of the good parts.
Project hail Mary is an excellent book, but not quite to the level of The Martian (REALLY enjoyed it however!). The film is a better adaptation. It still cuts a lot of science out, but at least plays lip service to it having happened. It also captures the characters PERFECTLY.
They’re very similar. “Competent man solves problems using science, some of which he caused by overlooking things.” But The Martian is more hard sci-fi (or, I guess, more believable). PHM is more fantastical sci-fi.
I’m tempted to say The Martian walked so that PHM could run. They’re both really good, though.
I love them both, but I think I prefer The Martian due to its lesser sci-fi nature. PHM probably has the more dynamic and interesting story though.
I’m so glad I never watched the trailer. I did have something spoiled but I mostly forgot about it until it happened so all is well.
Agreed on all points! Went with a friend who hadn’t read the book, and the important story beats hadn’t been ruined for her; certain emotional points hit her hard. So well executed.
Dude certain emotional points still hit me hard and I had just re-read the book two weeks ago
Turns out these chumps knew how to make a fuckin’ movie.
Honestly trailers are why I’m not seeing it. With the massive spoilers I don’t want marketers to have my money. I’ll watch it at home later, but very upset with them. I know it’s small in the grand scheme of things, but I’m very annoyed at them
When you can just watch a couple trailers and get all the major plot points, why waste the money?
Does the movie keep the suprise? I’ve read the book, just hoping it pops out of nowhere in the same way.
There are a couple of good surprises, one early-ish and one pretty late. (Trying to avoid spoilers here.)
The early-ish surprise (a character reveal) was a genuine jump-scare for me and I knew exactly what was about to happen. So pretty good.
The later surprise (a revelation about why someone is in their situation) is actually subtly foreshadowed better in the movie than it was in the book. A really great improvement.
I literally jumped at that first surprise. Well played …
And I agree that this was a superb adaptation.
It was a decent book and I guess I’ll see the movie eventually. We just have a really lousy theater locally.
“Project Hail Mary” is bringing audiences to movie theaters in numbers the industry hasn’t seen for a non-franchise film since “Oppenheimer.”
So, 3 years ago?
That’s an eternity for dipshit business brains that can’t think beyond the current quarter
what if we made Oppenheimer 2: nuclear bugaloo?
This was a joke, but I think a biopic about Edward Teller that kept the cast of Oppenheimer would be truly excellent.
Oppenheimer: The Two Towers
Well everything has to be a trilogy!
Sucks killing them wpuldnt fix anything.
non-franchise
Are you really saying that people might actually be fed up with recycled and reheated remakes or yet another addition to a superhero universe? Color me shocked…
You’re reading that wrong, they’re saying franchise films make more money than non-franchise films. You might interpret that as franchise films are still more popular than non-franchise films. Alternatively you could say even though franchise films suck most non-franchise films suck even more.
I didn’t think there’s any evidence that audience size has to correlate with quality.
Since Oppenheimer, you say?! That must have been released like a hundred years ago, right?! Amazing. The world we live in. Truly the future.
To me anything around 2000 I consider “newer” . considering film had been around wince what, 1880, I feel I’m accurate.
Makes sense. The book was really good and had a lot of the same energy that The Martian did. Weir very clearly grew up on Whedon/Tarantino and the constant self-quipping lines up with that. But, at its core, it is competency porn driven by a refusal to fail. The Martian was about Wattney’s personal survival whereas PHM is more about the survival of a species. Of course it is going to be good.
That said: never read Artemis. That ALSO makes it very clear that Weir grew up on Tarantino an Whedon and why it is probably only a matter of time until “nobody could have seen this coming”. Jesus fucking christ. Jim Butcher isn’t even that creepy and there are a LOT of open secrets about who his characters are “inspired by”.
Wait, what’s the deal with Jim Butcher?
He has always tended to spend multiple pages lingering on the bodies of any female character in his novels (… and I am intentionally not going to think about how old whatsherface was in Codex Alera) and they almost always have very “porn star” bodies. This is explained by Harry being a self-admitted chauvinist as though that is a good thing.
For years, the big “what the fuck” bits were Lara Raithe (who is literally a sex vampire so she kinda gets a pass) and… one of Harry’s best friend’s daughters (Molly) who literally stripped naked and tried to seduce Harry at least once. But his true love was his cop friend who was very clearly Butcher’s wife.
Then Butcher got divorced. Then the cop friend got got. Then we continued to get stories about how Molly is possessed by a primal energy and almost fucks someone to death. And quite a bit of text that she still wants to bang Harry and how it might even be HIS responsibility because of the primal energy he is possessed by. Then Harry is randomly betrothed to the porn vampire but its cool because they are into each other.
And… people with connections to the publishing/convention world can very much tell you that it is barely even an open secret who Lara Raithe was “inspired” by. And it is NOT mutual and has caused a fair number of headaches for folk over the years. Which then raises the question… if Karrin was his wife and Lara is <REDACTED> then who is Molly?
I gotta be honest, that just sounds like a lot of very boring drama.
Yeah. Butcher’s other books don’t have the same misogyny issues so it’s usually agreed upon that it’s a Harry Dresden issue and not a Butcher issue…
It’s also very hard to verify this Lara Raith stuff online (or at least I haven’t managed to find anything about it)… almost as if it’s not such an open secret.
That plus the fact that Murphy and the ex-wife look nothing alike and Murphy dies 4 books and 7 years after the divorce, in a series of books in which everyone knows the main character has never been allowed to be happy and keeps reminding himself that a villain once cursed him to die alone…
Then there’s Molly who got shut down by Harry pretty hard and there’s been no more tension since that one scene, so… Yeah, pretty meh stuff.
If you can get passed the weird shit, the books are pretty good, but yea a lot of the stuff in said books, are just pointless.
I was referring to the personal drama, not the books. I’ve listened to several during road trips and have been fully entertained; my wife is also a big fan overall, and we even have a plan for me to cosplay as Harry; the only inaccuracy is that I’m only 6’5".
Ah, I didn’t know about any drama from him, just that the books do have some…neckbeard moments in them? Where I just skip the shit…
If you’re looking for more competency porn like The Martian, they pivoted HARD away from that with this adaptation. They turned Grace into a bumbling idiot and a top to bottom coward. It was awful. Did the screenwriters even read this fucking book, or just the plot synopsis?
While Grace wasn’t an idiot in the books, he was a self proclaimed coward. Like most of the book he’s trying to get away from his problems.
He might have thought himself cowardly, but he was certainly not a coward. That same “coward” didn’t sit on his ass and drink the second he woke up, he figured out what was going on and set his mind to solving the problem. Grace didn’t scream bloody murder when he shut down the centrifuge, he… just did it I guess. (Like, wtf else did you think was about to happen, movie Grace?) He didn’t scream and try and run away from Rocky, he was instantly excited and eagerly worked his ass off for a first contact with an intelligent alien race.
I haven’t seen the movie yet so I can’t make any comments on it, I was just saying that in the books gracy literally proclaimed he’s a coward… it’s kinda how he was put on the mission…
The word coward was used 5 times total in the novel, and it was Stratt accusing him of being a coward twice before he ever called himself one, denegrating himself AFTER recalling the memory of his selection for the mission.
Like I said, he did certainly have a cowardly act when faced with death. One act does not make a person a coward, and for the whole story up to AND after that point, he dives headlong into danger.
Maybe the literal word wasn’t used - but I’m failing to think of a single other cowardly act from Grace in the whole novel. I’d be happy to reread any section that you think fits your narrative, but for now I really strongly disagree and had the opposite takeaway.
A MAJOR point of the book was that he was forced onto the mission against his will. He was just a guy that liked what he was doing and didn’t like being forced into things. This was very clear in the book, and was illustrated well in the film.
I guess you went to the bathroom during all the montages where he did Science™ … at the exact times he did in the book.
It really sucks though. 2.5 hours of unbearably cringe “humor.”
I think you wandered into the wrong theatre, buddy.
What do you mean? Goofy slapsticks back to back for several hours. I didn’t expect a silly comedy.
I’m not even confident that we’re speaking the same language.
What was in that popcorn?
I’m not sure about unbearably cringe…
There was so much humor in the book, I found myself laughing constantly. But I do have to agree that for some reason, the humor of the film hardly ever landed for me. Some of the jokes that carried over from the novel worked fine for me still.
My theater was roughly half full and they were surprisingly quiet too, so I don’t think it was just me. It was the first showtime on my large format screen - maybe they were all enthusiasts who were just as angry as I was that the highly competent Grace of the book was turned into a bumbling, constantly terrified idiot in the film.
Those of us who aren’t bumbling, constantly terrified idiots are just liars.
My theatre was packed to the brim with people who were very vocal at appropriate moments. Where were you, Arkansas? For example, I remember seeing The Second City do an eerily quiet tour stop there, which I can only assume is because of the obvious reasons.
It’s the Marvel syndrome: making fun of your characters to bond with the audience. The result is that said audience is less engaged when the pace accelerates into dramatic moments. You end up mildly interested without any emotional bond with the characters. Hail Mary failed exactly where The Martian succeeded
Interesting comment. The Martian is often the film I think of when I see these big budget attempts at action comedy that fall flat. That film was funny without ever feeling tryhard, which seems to be quite a hard formula to get right.
What movie did you watch?
Agree. Super dark and serious situation, but Ryan Gosling is just goofing around.
Yes, please ignore all the boring science that his character explicitly did throughout the film, and just concentrate on the humorous presentation instead.
I have read the book, it was much more focused on the science.
Yes, that’s kind of the point of an adaptation
