Ryan Gosling Is a Teacher-Turned-Astronaut in Harrowing and Comical ‘Project Hail Mary’ Trailer

Ryan Gosling is a middle school teacher who is tasked with a mission somehow more impossible than getting his students to care, well, about anything, in the first trailer for Project Hail Mary. The humor-tipped sci-fi film from Amazon MGM Studios arrives in theaters on March 20, 2026.

The film follows middle-school science teacher Ryland Grace (Gosling), whose doctorate in molecular biology somehow makes him the only scientist able to solve Earth’s latest problem: the sun is dying.

“I’m not an astronaut,” he protests. And aside from knowing nothing about being an astronaut or going to space, the mission will also take him 11.9 light years away from home.

“If you don’t go you die, with the rest of us,” co-star Sandra Hüller’s character tells him. “You are the only scientist who might know what this is.”

But the mission, dubbed Hail Mary, is far more dire than initially let on — not only is the sun dying, but so are all the stars. “Every star was infected by its neighbor, except one,” it’s explained. “We built a ship to go there and find out [what is happening].”

Ryland reluctantly accepts the mission after he’s told he’s the “solution” to the problem. “I put the ‘not’ in astraunot,” he says. “I can’t even moon walk!”

With a dose of humor, Ryland does his best to embrace his fate — he even meets an alien and names it Rocky. “He’s kind of growing on me,” he says. “At least he’s not growing in me, which was a concern for a little while.”

“It’s an insanely ambitious story that’s massive in scope, and it seemed really hard to make, and that’s kind of our bag,” Gosling said about the film at CinemaCon, per Variety. “This is why we go to the movies. And I’m not just saying it because I’m in it. I’m also saying it because I’m a producer on the film.”
Trending Stories
Leaked Iran Call Further Shreds Trump’s Narrative: Report
Trump Threatens to Force Journalists to Reveal Sources Who Leaked Iran Intel Report
Watch the Cure's Robert Smith Join Olivia Rodrigo for ‘Friday I’m in Love’
Why Did Bruce Springsteen Hide So Many Albums in His Vault?

The film, directed by Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse filmmakers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, is based on the Andy Weir novel of the same name. The script was written by Drew Goddard, who also adapted Weir’s The Martian for Ridley Scott’s blockbuster movie.

This is not the Barbie star’s first role as an astronaut; he played Neil Armstrong in 2018’s First Man. More recently, he appeared in last year’s The Fall Guy.