‘Project Hail Mary’ Contains Not a Single Green Screen Shot in Movie

Want another reason to see Project Hail Mary?

The highly anticipated, big-budget Ryan Gosling title somehow contains not a single shot of green/bluescreen in the entire film.

That’s really saying something, considering Project Hail Mary is a sci-fi epic that’s 156 minutes long.

The Amazon MGM Studios project is based on The Martian author Andy Weir’s best-selling hard-science novel Project Hail Mary and tells the story of an astronaut (Gosling) on a high-stakes mission to save Earth from an interstellar disaster who encounters an alien trying to save his world from the same fate.

Christopher Miller, who directed the film along with Phil Lord, told Comicbook.com (below, with some unmistakable pride in his voice), “What’s fun about the movie is that there is no greenscreen in the movie whatsoever. Not a single green- or bluescreen was used. The whole ship was built as a set from the inside. We had a huge section of the exterior of the ship on the outside that we built. [The alien character Rocky] was really with us at all times.

“And so, that’s what makes it feel real and makes it feel natural,” Miller continued. “And the way that [cinematographer Greg Fraser’s] team lit [the set] with a lot of practical effects, allowed him to move the camera wherever and find these moments. Because you weren’t just guessing and pointing it at where Rocky might be someday [if the character was added in postproduction]. That’s what makes [the action] feel like it was captured in the moment.”

Project Hail Mary has a reported gross budget of $248 million ($200 million after tax credits, says Puck) and represents a bit of a Hail Mary by the studio. But at a time when many sci-fi, superhero and fantasy projects are stuffed with actors performing against greenscreen backgrounds (not to mention our collective increasing weariness of so-called “AI slop” videos online), the practical nature of the film will could prove to be a selling point.

All that said, after his comments took off, Miller took to X to clarify that just because the production didn’t use greenscreen backgrounds doesn’t, of course, mean there are no digital effects. “Some clarification here: ‘No green screen’ doesn’t mean ‘no VFX,’” he wrote. “There were, in fact, thousands of VFX shots in the film (2018!). Green screen is sometimes used in lieu of building sets or figuring out locations/lighting in advance, which can be noticeable if not done carefully and is something we didn’t want to do.”

Continued Miller: “We built the entire interior of the Hail Mary ship — but within the ship, there were still wire and puppeteer removals and ceiling replacements, etc. When Ryan is outside on the hull of the ship, we shot him in front of a black background for space and a shifting hue background when he was up against the aurora of a planet which allowed for truer interactive light on him than a green screen would. The wide space exteriors and spaceship shots were entirely digital and beautifully done by ILM. Rocky was a seamless blend of puppetry and animation from Framestore. And other great work from many more. It really does take a village and we had the best of the best on our side.”

The film has been receiving rather stellar early buzz. One reporter called it “profound and profoundly moving, an absolute masterpiece of hope and humanity. It’s also insanely entertaining,” while another wrote the film “feels, in many ways, like a miracle of a movie. It combines the technical awe of Gravity, the problem-solving exhilaration and humor of The Martian, and the sweeping emotion of Interstellar into one film with its own unique style and charm.”

The cast also includes Sandra Hüller, Lionel Boyce, Ken Leung and Milana Vayntrub. Project Hail Mary is released in theaters on March 20.