Project Hail Mary is a smash hit at the box office, and nobody’s more thrilled than the emerging powerhouse Amazon MGM Studios. In Hollywood, when a movie earns that rare combination of critical and commercial success, sequel talk becomes inevitable. But it’s not as simple as hiring a screenwriter to bang out Project Hail Mary 2. The creative team behind the movie doesn’t want to continue the story until Andy Weir, who wrote the Project Hail Mary novel, pens his own follow-up first.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, “While there are no official conversations underway between Weir and Amazon MGM, insiders confirm a sequel isn’t out of the question.”
The trade continued: “Both Amazon MGM and reps for Weir declined comment on a follow-up book or movie sequel. But sources close to MGM stress that Weir is in the driver’s seat. The acclaimed author has never penned a sequel to one of his books before, and he is currently working on a mysterious new novel that is unrelated to Hail Mary. But he has said he is toying with potential sequel ideas, though he does not have anything solid enough for a book, yet.”
That’s encouraging, though even if Weir does decide to pen a follow-up to Project Hail Mary, it’s going to be a long wait to see Ryland Grace and Rocky back in action. And of course, we have no idea what the story will be, though Weir has teased at least one story point he’d like to explore.
In a Wired video interview alongside Project Hail Mary star Ryan Gosling and directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, Weir was asked about one of the most searched questions about the movie: what happened to the other two astronauts that blasted into space alongside Ryland Grace but didn’t survive the trip?
It’s not elaborated upon in the book. According to Miller, the backstory they had to work with for the film was “On the way, at different times, each of them got sick, and the medical robot [aboard the ship] was not able to fix it. But it never is fully explained.”
To this, Weir said, “I know the answer to this, but I’m saving it for potential sequel materials … but I’m keeping it secret for now.”
Could Project Mary 2 explore some kind of astrophage-adjacent space sickness, giving Ryland and Rocky another big problem to solve? What would you like to see from a Project Hail Mary sequel—or do you think the movie should be a standalone and avoid the lure of building a new sci-fi franchise?
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