Project Hail Mary author Andy Weir has revealed his “only regret” about the movie, confirming the one scene from his book he wishes had made it into the adaptation.
Warning! Spoilers for Project Hail Mary follow:
Project Hail Mary sees humanity launch a desperate mission to stop an alien microorganism nicknamed Astrophage from consuming the sun’s energy. In the story, it is established that this phenomena is causing a catastrophic global cooling that threatens to trigger an ice age, mass starvation, and, eventually, the extinction of the human race.
The movie, directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller and starring Ryan Gosling, leaves out a number of Earth-set scenes that are found in the book, and Andy Weir considers one of those scenes to be his only regret about the adaptation.
Appearing on StarTalk, the science podcast and radio show hosted by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, Weir was asked if there was one scene from his book he felt should have been in the movie. Weir, who was a producer on the movie so, as he put it, “I had say,” replied to reveal his “only regret” — a scene both he and screenwriter Drew Goddard “fought for” but ultimately had to accept defeat on because “we just didn’t have time for it because the runtime was going so long.”
“My only regret — and Drew and I both fought for this — Drew Godard wrote the adaptation, did a fantastic job. And he and I both wanted this one scene and we just didn’t have time for it because the runtime was going so long. But there’s a scene in the book where they nuke Antarctica. They set off a bunch of nuclear explosions in Antarctica to make an entire ice shelf fall into the ocean so that it will melt and release all the methane, which is greenhouse gases, so that Earth will retain more of the heat that it is getting from the sun.
“So, they’re like, ‘We need some global warming.’”
It works both ways, of course. There are some scenes found in the movie that are not in the book. For example, while Project Hail Mary the movie eventually returns to Earth to depict frozen oceans caused by the global cooling, Weir’s book does not. “We see the beginnings of it in the book,” Weir said of the Earth’s descent into a new ice age. “They’re starting to have problems. And a lot of their problems are caused by the amelioration techniques they’re proactively doing. Things are going to get worse, but then we’re gonna need that heat.”
Wondering what all the fuss is about? Amazon MGM just extended the Project Hail Mary exclusive theatrical window, with a full return to Imax for one week only kicking off this weekend. Amazon agreed to delay the film’s release on Prime video with it enjoying continued success at the box office, where it is expected to shoot past the $600 million mark globally. Co-director Christopher Miller recently told fans Project Hail Mary “won’t be on streaming anytime soon.”
Project Hail Mary is doing so well at the global box office, in fact, that there’s already talk of turning it into a franchise with a sequel. However, Andy Weir, who also wrote The Martian, is said to be “in the driver’s seat” on this, which suggests he’d have to write a Project Hail Mary follow-up for further adaptations to take place.
Is this likely? In a recent interview with The New York Times, Weir was asked if he would ever do a sequel in some way. He replied: “Absolutely, I have ideas for sequels for Project Hail Mary, but I just don’t have a good enough one yet. My next book, the one I’m working on now, is not a sequel to anything that I’ve written.”
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
