{"id":487371,"date":"2026-03-21T09:19:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T09:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/487371\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T09:19:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T09:19:12","slug":"phil-lord-christopher-miller-on-films-ending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/487371\/","title":{"rendered":"Phil Lord & Christopher Miller on Film’s Ending"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Editor\u2019s note: The following interview contains\u00a0spoilers\u00a0for the ending of \u201cProject Hail Mary<\/a>.\u201d]<\/p>\n

If you haven\u2019t seen \u201cProject Hail Mary\u201d yet<\/a>, you probably shouldn\u2019t read any further for a couple reasons. <\/p>\n

The first is that directors Phil Lord<\/a> and Christopher Miller<\/a> discuss the ending of the film<\/a> at length. So, that\u2019s one. Second, this isn\u2019t the kind of movie ending discussion where the takeaway is something relatively easy to note like, \u201cAnd then Doctor Doom shows up.\u201d (If that truly is the news you want out of this, I\u2019ll just go ahead and confirm that Doctor Doom is not in this movie.) If you haven\u2019t seen the film (or read Andy Weir\u2019s novel, which it is based on), the words ahead will most likely have little meaning.<\/p>\n

\"Luis<\/a> \"Jessie<\/a> <\/p>\n

OK, now that that\u2019s out of the way\u2026<\/p>\n

The reason the ending of \u201cProject Hail Mary\u201d is worth discussing is because it does stick pretty close to the source material of Weir\u2019s book of the same name (something screenwriter Drew Goddard previously told IndieWire<\/a> was also very important to him). But, cinematically, there is a moment late in the film in which Dr. Ryland Grace (a scientist, played by Ryan Gosling, tasked with trying to save humanity by finding a cure for a dying sun) risks his life and his safe return to Earth to, instead, rescue his new alien friend, Rocky (who is on a similar mission from his own world). <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a deeply emotional beat and I could envision a world in which a filmmaker might just want to wrap everything up right there and leave both of their futures more ambiguous. But, as I point out ahead, I am not a filmmaker, so that\u2019s why I asked Lord and Miller if this was at all considered. And, in their answer, they explain why they were hellbent on keeping the book\u2019s ending at any cost. (You can read the rest of our interview with the directors, which is significantly less spoiler-heavy, right here.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The following interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.<\/p>\n

IndieWire: Now, keep in mind, I\u2019m not a filmmaker, so I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m talking about here\u2026<\/p>\n

Phil Lord: We are filmmakers and we also don\u2019t know what we\u2019re talking about.\u00a0<\/p>\n

See, that\u2019s not true. But the ending of the film is very close to the ending of the book, but near the end, there\u2019s also a scene where Grace and Rocky reunite, which does seem like a good emotional movie ending. Was there any thought of ending there and leaving what happens next ambiguous?<\/p>\n

Lord: We were ready for that. We are experienced enough to know the test audiences might help you understand where the movie has to end. And the funny thing was, they love the ending.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a great ending. But I could see, as filmmakers, there\u2019s also a draw to an ambiguous ending that audiences might not like right away.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lord: They want those guys to live happily ever after.<\/p>\n

Christopher Miller: We even thought, maybe they won\u2019t want the part where he\u2019s a schoolteacher to a bunch of rock babies. But they want that part, too!\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"\u2018Project Hail Mary\u2019Amazon MGM<\/p>\n

Lord: Or that they won\u2019t like that he lives in a terrarium and he can never see the sun again. But they like that because he\u2019s with his best friend. That is one of the things, ultimately, that really inspired us about the novel. And it inspired Drew [Goddard]. And we all kind of stacked hands on it and we were like, \u201cNo way are we going to fucking change this ending.\u201d We are going to hold the line, because this makes the movie interesting. It differentiates it. And it\u2019s something that I don\u2019t ever expect to happen. <\/p>\n

And it is a story about a guy who, unlike most space protagonists, he does not feel at home on Earth and lonely in space. He feels lonely on Earth and at home in space \u2026 with his one friend [laughs]. So it takes the trajectory of that character, not one where he goes over and back and starts where he finished. He\u2019s out in the universe. He\u2019s progressed to the next version of himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Miller: Off to have new adventures.<\/p>\n

Lord: Off to have new adventures! And for what is, ultimately, a character study of a person who is afraid to become who he is capable of being. Because he doesn\u2019t want to have his feelings hurt, basically [laughs]. The fact that he gets to go off to the wild blue yonder is, to me, an apt ending.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Miller: It\u2019s like that song, \u201cHome is wherever I\u2019m with you.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lord: There you go.<\/p>\n

An Amazon MGM Studios release, \u201cProject Hail Mary\u201d is in theaters now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[Editor\u2019s note: The following interview contains\u00a0spoilers\u00a0for the ending of \u201cProject Hail Mary.\u201d] If you haven\u2019t seen \u201cProject Hail…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487372,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[122247,96,2332,59,2580,122248,111195,111196,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-487371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-christopher-miller","tag-entertainment","tag-film","tag-gb","tag-interviews","tag-phil-lord","tag-phil-lord-and-chris-miller","tag-project-hail-mary","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}