Project Hail Mary Screenwriter Wishes One Scene From The Novel Wasn't Cut From The Movie

Phil Lord and Christopher Miller's "Project Hail Mary" was one of the most acclaimed and beloved sci-fi crowd-pleasers this year. Blending hard science fiction with affectionate character drama while coasting on the affable charm of Ryan Gosling as the leading man, the two directors brought the most out of Andy Weir's 2021 bestselling novel of the same name the film is based on. But of course, not every single page made it to the final cut.

Screenwriter Drew Goddard — who gave audiences such classics as "The Cabin in the Woods," "Bad Times at El Royale," and "The Martian," another movie adaptation of a lauded Weir book — did his best to keep as much of the source material as possible in the two-and-a-half-hour-long feature, but some cuts were inevitable. In a recent interview with Gold Derby, the writer revealed that the first cut of the film was around four hours, but there was one plotline he wished he could've kept.

"There's a storyline in the book where they realize they have to nuke Antarctica to help with the climate so they can survive longer. I always thought that was so cool. I was like, 'Oh, this is juicy.' It speaks to the larger themes, showing how complicated a situation we're in and that there aren't easy answers. I knew in the back of my mind we were going to have to cut it at some point. It took so long to explain and then to show, and you just didn't want to be away from Rocky and Grace for that long. That one hurt. There are lots of little things, but that was the big one that I wish we could have figured out."

Not a lot of epic, big-budget sci-fis manage to become instant classics these days, but "Project Hail Mary" certainly exceeded its expectations early on. Even before it hit cinemas, critics who saw it at film festivals couldn't stop praising it, which created a rather oversized hype among cinephiles. The overwhelmingly positive reception resulted in a sky-high score on Rotten Tomatoes, eventually settling at 95% after hundreds of reviews.

Word spread fast, and moviegoers were just as keen and curious about checking out this one as they were about the first Andy Weir novel that received a film adaptation (which turned out to be incredibly accurate science-wise) by Ridley Scott over a decade ago. Against its $200 million budget, "Project Hail Mary" broke bank at the box office, grossing over $684 million worldwide.

For what it's worth, cutting that specific storyline — no matter how intriguing and exciting it may've been in the book — likely was the right choice that paid off handsomely. And who knows, if there's ever a sequel, you might see that idea return and manifest in a different form.