Published Jul 4, 2026, 11:30 AM EDT
Rohan Naahar is a News Writer for Collider. From Francois Ozon to David Fincher, he’ll watch anything once. 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.
After defying the odds in its box-office run, the year’s biggest sci-fi movie has finally been released on Prime Video. As expected, it jumped straight to the number one spot on the streamer’s viewership charts, both domestically and worldwide. The film was released theatrically by Amazon MGM Studios, which extended its run after it emerged as a massive word-of-mouth sensation. Essentially a streaming release like*** F1*** last year, the movie in question ended up outgrossing Brad Pitt’s blockbuster sports drama at the box office. It ultimately generated around $680 million worldwide against a reported budget of $200 million, and is among the year’s highest-grossing hits.
By comparison, *F1 *made approximately $630 million worldwide. The 2026 sci-fi hit was directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who hadn’t helmed a movie in over a decade. They were unceremoniously removed from Solo: A Star Wars Story after working on it for months, and were replaced by Ron Howard. Lord and Miller went on to win the Best Animated Feature Oscar for producing Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which was followed by Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. The duo started out in animation, but transitioned to live-action with ***21 Jump Street ***and its sequel, 22 Jump Street. The sci-fi movie was their biggest project yet and it lived up to expectations.
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
We’re talking, of course, about Project Hail Mary. Starring **Ryan Gosling **and based on the bestseller by Andy Weir, the movie was released to near-unanimous praise in March. The film holds a “Certified Fresh” 94% critics’ score and a “Verified Hot” 95% audience score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the consensus reads, “A visually dazzling space odyssey that’s carried along effortlessly by the gravitational pull of Ryan Gosling at his most winning, Project Hail Mary is a near-miraculous fusion of smarts and heart.” With reviews like this, Project Hail Mary is already being talked about as a major Oscars contender. It debuted on streaming only this week, and according to FlixPatrol, is already the number one title on Prime Video. Project Hail Mary unseated Prime Video’s holdover hit, The Sheep Detectives, as well as Jack Ryan: Ghost War. 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
Drew Goddard, Andy Weir
Aditya Sood, Amy Pascal, Andy Weir, Christopher Miller, Phil Lord, Rachel O’Connor, Ryan Gosling