Project Hail Mary Movie Sequel Is a Possibility

In the early weeks of the pandemic, Ryan Gosling received the manuscript for Project Hail Mary a full year before The Martian author Andy Weir published the sci-fi space novel. The actor was hooked. Just as the world was going into lockdown and facing an existential crisis, came along the story of a scientist and an alien nicknamed Rocky working together, step by step, to stop stars from dying across the galaxy. The timing couldn’t be more opportune.

Gosling snapped up the rights to star in and produce a movie adaptation of Weir’s novel. He brought on former Sony studio chief Amy Pascal to help produce and assemble the key pieces in spring 2020, including hiring Phil Lord and Chris Miller to direct, with Drew Goddard later hired to write. While the rights project was initially set up at MGM for $3 million, the official deal agreeing to pony up $190 million to make the film wasn’t closed until after Amazon bought the once-storied studio in 2022.

Six years later, the movie’s record-breaking launch at the worldwide box office couldn’t come at a more opportune time for Amazon MGM Studios, which is on the brink of becoming the first new Hollywood major studio in decades. It’s a feat it will accomplish within the next year, if not sooner, when former Paramount exec and newly installed president of international distribution Helen Moss completes building out an international distribution operation. (Kevin Wilson will continue to head up domestic distribution.) MGM lost its major status in the early 1970s when it became only a domestic distributor. Sony is handling international, for example, on Hail Mary, while Universal has handled the recent Bond pics and Warners, the Creed series.

Soon, Amazon MGM will be able to reap the full benefits of having a worldwide footprint. That also includes a potential Hail Mary sequel. While there are no official conversations underway between Weir and Amazon MGM, insiders confirm a sequel isn’t out of the question. (The merchandising potential of Rocky, played by James Ortiz, is substantial.)

Both Amazon MGM and reps for Weir declined comment on a follow-up book or movie sequel. But sources close to MGM stress that Weir is in the driver’s seat. The acclaimed author has never penned a sequel to one of his books before, and he is currently working on a mysterious new novel that is unrelated to Hail Mary. But he has said he is toying with potential sequel ideas, though he does not have anything solid enough for a book, yet. (Both Weir and Gosling are repped by CAA.)

Even if it does not birth a franchise, Hail Mary brings a new level of credibility to the table in terms of Amazon MGM’s standing in Hollywood. It is the rarest of breeds in becoming an instant box office sensation that few saw coming, considering that sci-fi is one of the most difficult genres to sell to general audiences.

The movie is striking a chord with all demos — including families in a major way — explaining its record-breaking launch over the March 20-22 weekend. Hail Mary opened to $80.5 million in North America alone, the second-best showing in a decade for a non-sequel, non-franchise title behind Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer ($82.5 million). And on March 25, its sixth day in release, it rocketed past $100 million at the domestic box office for an early global total of $150 million.

Moving forward, Amazon MGM, where Courtenay Valenti runs film and Sue Kroll runs worldwide marketing, could prove an enticing landing pad for talent who are otherwise facing the daunting prospect of the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger and fewer homes for their projects.

Hail Mary survived several ups and downs during the six years it took to hit the screen. It survived MGM’s 2022 sale to Amazon, which saw MGM co-heads Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy depart for Warner Bros. following its sale to Discovery. (Hail Mary was set up at MGM when De Luca was running the studio solo.)

In an ironic twist of fate — at least for Hail Mary – Valenti soon left Warners for Amazon MGM. During her three decades at Warners, the unassuming and keen-eyed production exec spearheaded the Harry Potter franchise along with numerous other hits. She was also in charge of Margot Robbie’s Barbie, which famously starred Gosling as Ken.

Valenti became Hail Mary’s creative champion and gave the official greenlight to the $190 million project. Kroll also did a long stint at Warners, and was involved with the marketing of Gravity, another surprise sci-fi hit. Both execs know Lord and Miller from their time on Warners’ The Lego Movie franchise.

As for the directors, the duo has a strong relationship with Pascal, who has worked with them dating back to their Cloudy With a Chance of Meatball days at Sony, and more recently, the Spider-Verse movies. The two filmmakers also have a strong bond with Weir through Aditya Sood, who discovered The Martian back when it was a self-published novel and he was working at Simon Kinberg’s Genre Films. (He now runs the duo’s Lord Miller banner as president).

Lord and Miller have hopes of adapting Weir’s second novel, 2017’s Artemis, though they will be tied up with the final Spider-Verse movie for the next year, and have half a dozen other projects they are developing to direct. “There is an Artemis script; it’s delightful. The thing that was holding that back for years was, how do we execute one-sixth gravity? The story takes place on the moon. We think we’ve figured it out,” Miller recently told THR.

The ending of Andy Weir’s 2021 novel is subdued, even a little melancholy. The film version hits the same story beats but is more celebratory. The film version makes it easier to imagine it being the jumping off point for a second book — and movie.

“Every great franchise starts with a popular original film,” says Comscore box office analyst Paul Dergerabedian. “The outpouring of interest by audiences in Project Hail Mary and its over-performance at the box office delivers to Amazon MGM what every studio executive dreams of: the rare and elusive newly minted film franchise.”