He has covered everything from Marvel to the Oscars, and Marvel at the Oscars. He also writes obsessively about the box office, charting the many hits and misses that are released weekly, and how their commercial performance shapes public perception. In his time at Collider, he has also helped drive diversity by writing stories about the multiple Indian film industries, with a goal of introducing audiences to a whole new world of cinema.
Released three decades apart, Project Hail Mary and the biggest sci-fi blockbuster of the 1990s present very different approaches to aliens. While Project Hail Mary’s protagonist, played by Ryan Gosling, forms perhaps the most meaningful bond of his life with a creature from another planet, the 1990s blockbuster was more wary of outsiders. This view of outsiders may still be true, politically speaking, but it is the movies’ responsibility to hold a mirror up to society and offer opportunities for introspection. Project Hail Mary has clearly struck a chord with audiences, exceeding all box-office expectations during its six-week theatrical run. As it heads into its seventh weekend, the movie has overtaken the majestic haul of its 1990s counterpart.
Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, Project Hail Mary is based on the bestseller by Andy Weir. It was first teased by Amazon MGM Studios over a year ago in a major show of strength. The confidence was warranted, with the movie debuting to near-unanimous acclaim. It now holds a “Certified Fresh” 94% critics’ score and a “Verified Hot” 96% audience score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. Not only has the movie done exceedingly well at the box office, but it will likely also have an enormously successful run on streaming when it eventually debuts on Prime Video.
Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for.
You took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You’re a systems thinker who can’t help but notice the seams in things.
The wasteland doesn’t reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break. That’s you.
You’d survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely.
Arrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards.
The galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn’t have it any other way.
With $308 million so far at the domestic box office, Project Hail Mary has surpassed the $306 million lifetime haul of Independence Day. Released in 1996, the movie was directed by Roland Emmerich. Independence Day grossed more than $800 million worldwide against a reported budget of $75 million, and cemented Will Smith as the star of his generation. Also featuring Jeff Goldblum and Bill Pullman, among others, the film emerged as the second-biggest blockbuster ever made at the time. It now holds a 68% score on Rotten Tomatoes, where the consensus reads, “The plot is thin and so is character development, but as a thrilling, spectacle-filled summer movie, Independence Day delivers.” Emmerich returned to direct a sequel in 2016, but Smith chose to sit it out. The follow-up received poor reviews and delivered an underwhelming performance at the box office. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
Project Hail Mary ](/tag/movie/project-hail-mary/)
Science Fiction
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Christopher Miller, Phil Lord
Based on the novel by Andy Weir (The Martian), Project Hail Mary is an action-adventure sci-fi film that stars Ryan Gosling as an astronaut who must save Earth from an oncoming ice age by heading to a faraway galaxy.