It’s that time of the week again — when first reactions hit social media and the “M” word gets uttered, by numerous accounts, to pump up buzz for a film.
Then again, buzz has been unusually positive for months when it comes to Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s “Project Hail Mary,” which stars Ryan Gosling as a teacher who wakes up on a spaceship with no recollection of who he is or how he got there.
At least this time around, there are a handful of actual critics weighing in with their thoughts, all based in LA, who saw the film over the last 48 hours. Then there’s Jeff Bezos, who decided to praise his own film — which is backed by Amazon — calling it “outstanding.”
According to Variety, the Ryan Gosling–led “Project Hail Mary” cost north of $150M to produce. It’s already been earning Oscar buzz; there were those glowing test screenings, and Deadline’s Justin Kroll recently claimed that a handful of his sources have seen the film, calling it a “masterpiece.” Still, I would remain cautious—for now, this could just be a studio-concocted psy-op, or, yes, maybe, as these social media reactions seem to indicate, the real deal.
The film marks Lord and Miller’s first time directing a feature since their infamous departure from “Solo: A Star Wars Story” back in 2017. Their last completed directorial effort remains “22 Jump Street” (2014), though they’ve stayed busy on the producing and writing front with projects like “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” and “The LEGO Movie 2.”
“Project Hail Mary” hits theaters March 20.
We're about seven weeks out, and there's been barely any buzz. The rollout has been weak, especially for a movie built around Tarantino, Fincher, and Pitt.