Ryan Gosling is blasting off into space in next year’s “Project Hail Mary,” but first he made a stop at San Diego Comic Con on Saturday.
Gosling joined a packed Hall H panel alongside directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller, writer Drew Goddard and author Andy Weir, who wrote the original book. Gosling plays astronaut Ryland Grace who “awakens on a spacecraft with no memory of himself or his mission. He slowly deduces he is the sole survivor of a crew sent to the Tau Ceti solar system in search of a solution to a catastrophic event on Earth. In his search for answers, Grace must rely on his vast array of scientific knowledge, sheer ingenuity and human will — but he may not have to search alone.”
To kick things off, the team showed the first five minutes of the sci-fi film to the audience. The movie starts with Gosling waking up from a medically induced coma that has put him into cryo-sleep for a long time. He’s pretty groggy and sports a shaggy beard as a robotic arm unzips him from his sleeping bag and uncomfortably removes a feeding tube from his throat. Gosling falls off his gurney — his body hasn’t regained muscle function yet — and the robot drags him into a padded room to continue running tests on him. After throwing objects at his robo-helper, Gosling explores his spaceship and discovers a deceased companion in another sleeping chamber. He then looks outside into deep space and realizes the mess he’s in. He punches the glass window in frustration, and the footage ends.
Another clip, set on Earth prior to the opening scene, showed Gosling and Sandra Huller’s scientist arguing about his credentials to head to space. Ryland is a teacher with a doctorate in molecular biology, but the government needs him to embark on the ship to save the planet from extinction. He shows off his smarts by conducting tests on some space bacteria while a group of government officials scrutinize his every move. After asking if they care if he dies during his mission, Huller discusses with the group and deadpans that “it’s preferable if you don’t die.” After making no progress with his tests, Gosling says that it took humans “200 years for scientists to figure out how bacteria works.” Huller fires back, “please do it faster.” For a moment, it appears Gosling made a breakthrough and discovers a cell within the bacteria. He celebrates, but then looks back under the microscope and sees that the cell unceremoniously died.
The final clip the “Project Hail Mary” team showed was Gosling meeting a strange little alien. After leaving his spaceship, Gosling discovers a rocky tunnel and floats down it in zero gravity. He approaches a wall with a clear window, and suddenly an alien hand appears. The hand has two fingers, is made of rocks and produces little toys that resemble Gosling and his ship. The voiceless alien, who is later named Rocky, mimes to Gosling that he should return to his ship. Gosling does so, but comically replies “talk to you later” to Rocky.
Gosling discussed playing Ryland and how he connected to an “ordinary person in an extraordinary situation.”
“I connected to his reluctance,” he said. “Aside from the fact he has a doctorate in molecular biology, he’s an ordinary person in an extraordinary situation. He reacts to a lot of things the way I might or a lot of us might. He’s terrified appropriately of the task at hand. He’s somebody who gave up on himself on Earth, and he’s given an opportunity to believe in himself again. It’s inspiring to go through this journey with him because he somehow finds the courage to put one foot in front of the other and keep going.”
“Project Hail Mary” hits theaters on March 20. With it, Lord and Miller are helming their first film since 2014’s “22 Jump Street” (they’ve otherwise kept busy by producing Sony Animation’s “Spider-Verse” trilogy, “Cocaine Bear,” “The Mitchells vs. the Machines” and more).
“Project Hail Mary” is based on the sci-fi novel of the same name by Weir, whose previous novel “The Martian” was brought to life by Matt Damon and directed by Ridley Scott. In addition to Gosling, the cast includes “Anatomy of a Fall” star Huller, Milana Vayntrub, Lionel Boyce and Ken Leung.
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