{"id":403370,"date":"2026-04-21T12:20:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T12:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/403370\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T12:20:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T12:20:17","slug":"inside-ryan-goslings-marketing-marvel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/403370\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside Ryan Gosling’s Marketing Marvel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tA year ago, Ryan Gosling<\/a> \u2014 coming off his role as Ken in 2023\u2019s Barbie \u2014 turned up in Las Vegas for Amazon MGM Studios<\/a>\u2018 first official presentation at CinemaCon<\/a>, sharing footage of Project Hail Mary, a film adaptation of Andy Weir\u2019s novel about a geeky and but witty high-school teacher who finds himself hurtling through space on a mission to stop the sun from dimming and destroying life everywhere. Along the way, he meets a craggy alien he names \u201cRocky.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe dream team behind the sleeper hit movie \u2014 as of April 19, it had already passed up the entire domestic runs of Dune: Part II and Gravity with more than $285 million in domestic sales and nearly $600 million globally \u2014 includes directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, screenwriter Drew Goddard, who adapted Weir\u2019s The Martian for Fox, Amazon MGM\u2019s film head Courtenay Valenti, who had spent years at Warner Bros<\/a>., and Amazon Studios\u2019 head of global marketing Sue Kroll, also a Warners\u2019 alum.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith the drastic consolidation facing the Hollywood studio system, virtually all of the chatter heading into this year\u2019s CinemaCon was focused on David Ellison\u2019s audacious bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery after he had barely been anointed the new owner of Paramount<\/a> in August 2025. (Warner Bros. is leaps and bounds ahead of Paramount in terms of the scope of its slate after Paramount suffered from years of financial neglect.)<\/p>\n

\n\tBut it was instead Amazon MGM that turned into a surprise studio star of CinemaCon, including when Gosling, the conquering hero, made a surprise appearance alongside Lord and Miler to thank theater owners for supporting Hail Mary. Gosling handed a bouquet of flowers and a thank-you card to a woman in the audience to pass around.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tRyan Gosling and Project Hail Mary filmmakers Chris Miller and Phil Lord thank theater owners at CinemaCon 2026.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEthan Miller\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn fact, tonight Amazon is doing more than talking about their commitment to theatrical \u2013 they\u2019re honoring it by extending the exclusive theatrical window for Project Hail Mary,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is something that was important to all of us as filmmakers, too.\u201d He had already more than endeared himself to theater owners going into the convention. A month ago, Gosling made another surprise appearance, this time at a Saturday viewing of Project Hail Mary in New York City where he said Hollywood must stop blaming cinema operators and do a better job of making movies people want to see. The comments went viral, in another testament to his marketing instincts.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile the Disney, Universal and Warners presentations were widely praised, insiders lauded Amazon MGM as it becomes a full-fledged major studio. \u201cThe fact that Amazon MGM showed up for the second year in a row is great news for the industry,\u201d says one studio chief.<\/p>\n

The headlines generated by Gosling\u2019s appearance at CinemaCon have already paid off. Part of Hail Mary\u2018s extended run included bringing the film back to Imax screens. After CinemaCon wrapped on April 16, over the April 17-19 weekend, Hail Mary<\/a> fell only 15 percent in its fifth weekend, earning an estimated $20.4 million for a domestic cume of $285 million and a staggering $573.1 million globally. It was expected to fall at least 20 percent over the weekend, and even that would have been good.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs I say to our team constantly, our ambition for theatrical film is in the top half of the first inning. Project Hail Mary is just the beginning. While some of our competitors have dipped their toes in and out of the theatrical waters, for us, this isn\u2019t a test or an experiment. Our commitment to release at least 15 films every year into your theaters is on schedule,\u201d Mike Hopkins, head of Prime Video & Amazon MGM Studios told exhibitors at CinemaCon. \u201cAnd to support that commitment, we are building an international distribution organization \u2013 one we hope to have up and running later this year.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tTo that end, Amazon has hired Helen Moss, a former longtime international executive at Paramount Pictures. Once the foreign operation is in place, Amazon MGM will become the first new major Hollywood studio in decades (the ability to release a title around the globe without assistance from a third-party is what separates a major from a mini-major, such as Lionsgate). On the other side of the aisle, Kevin Wilson \u2014 another veteran studio exec \u2014 heads up domestic distribution.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tMike Hopkins, head of Prime Video & Amazon MGM Studios, addresses exhibitors at CinemaCon 2026.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGreg Doherty\/Getty Images for Amazon MGM Studios<\/p>\n

\n\tHail Mary has been a boon in particular for the domestic box office, which was lagging badly earlier in the year, putting additional pressure on tried-and-true franchises to do all the work in making larger agins, such as The Super Mario Galaxy movie, which opened a few weeks after Hail Mary.<\/p>\n

\n\tComscore chief box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian says the film and rollout \u201cwill be viewed as a textbook example\u201d of how to harness the power of both a legacy studio (MGM) and a modern streamer (Amazon), calling it \u201ca blueprint on how to make these two seemingly opposing worlds be complementary.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s not to say that every Amazon release has been a win at the box office. Earlier this year, both Mercy and Crime 101 underperformed.<\/p>\n

\n\tGosling was a hands-on creative leader and partner throughout the Hail Mary campaign, and observers note it worked because there was an inherent alignment between Gosling\u2019s persona and the film itself. \u201cHis humor, intelligence, and understated charisma are embedded in the DNA of the film,\u201d notes one rival studio executive.<\/p>\n

\n\tTouted Kroll from the CinemaCon stage, \u201cWe\u2019ve assembled a team with deep, legacy studio experience\u2014many of whom you know well\u2014leaders who have spent their careers launching films theatrically at the highest level. That expertise is now applied with a singular focus: not just releasing films, but championing each one with the care, rigor, and creativity it deserves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRead on for Hail Mary\u2018s marketing tactics, which included press tours to London, Paris and Mexico city, as well as press junkets at science-centric locations such as JPL and Griffith Observatory.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tThe Fox sweater worn by Gosling\u2019s character, Ryland Grace, in Project Hail Mary has become a viral sensation among knitting enthusiasts and is a modified version of a famous vintage Wolf pattern sold by the family owned yarns & crafts company Mary Maxim.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJonathan Olley\/Amazon Content Services<\/p>\n

\n\t*Created shareable moments driven by Gosling, including his SNL hosting gig and\u00a0a La La Land\u00a0spoof. There was also the \u201cRyan Gosling Believes in the Hail Mary\u201d viral video series also featured Gosling completing impossible Hail Marys including throwing a football through Randy\u2019s Donuts sign in L.A. (over 10 million views) and nailing a Final Jeopardy question (50 million views)<\/p>\n

\n\t*Gosling recorded a promotional video during the NFL NFC Championship game highlighting the concept of the Hail Mary in sports and life, and made the rounds on numerous talk shows. Movie themed stunts included celebrating an audience full of teachers; a Happy Birthday school band salute to his wife, Eva Mendes, and a Harry Styles\u2019 surprise pop-up (the Styles song \u201cSign of the Times\u201d is featured in the movie).<\/p>\n

\n\t* Partnered with NASA, sports, faith and family, multicultural, and science\/tech communities for screenings, and targeted multicultural engagement anchored by HBCU-focused programming with Spelman College\u2019s speech & debate team.<\/p>\n

\n\t*Integrations across the Super Bowl, NBA All-Star Game, and Winter Olympics, coordinated global light shows in Taipei, Toronto, and Berlin.<\/p>\n

\n\t*Deployed creator initiatives including \u201cSun is Dying\u201d hoax pranks, fan edit campaigns, and YouTube ads led by Cleo Abram; trailer fan edits and BookTok activations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A year ago, Ryan Gosling \u2014 coming off his role as Ken in 2023\u2019s Barbie \u2014 turned up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[5877,458,163362,146,85,46,4523,20672,2223],"class_list":{"0":"post-403370","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-amazon-mgm-studios","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-cinemacon","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-il","13":"tag-israel","14":"tag-paramount","15":"tag-ryan-gosling","16":"tag-warner-bros"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}