The final trailer for Project Hail Mary was just released, and it’s all led to this. With previous trailers only hinting at the film’s other main character, an alien creature named Rocky, this trailer goes all in on it. And it’s absolutely adorable.
Directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, Project Hail Mary stars Ryan Gosling as Ryland Grace, a middle school teacher who wakes up in space and realizes the fate of the planet is in his hands. But, very quickly, he also finds out Earth isn’t the only planet in danger. He teams up with an alien from another world, whom he nicknames Rocky, to save both their planets. And, as the headline (as well as the song choice of the trailer) says, we would die for this little guy.
Lord and Miller are aware that some people might be angry that Rocky, who has been teased in the past, is now featured so prominently, but they promise it’s okay. “This movie is a relationship movie,” Miller said at a recent event in Los Angeles that io9 was at. “The co-star of the movie is not really a secret. It would be like doing E.T. with E.T. or something.” “One of the things people often ask when they go to see a movie is, ‘What is the premise of the movie?’” Lord added. “We felt like we should answer that.”
“People who had experiences reading the book were like, ‘Oh my God, what a crazy surprise.’ Because they [didn’t] know anything,” Miller said. “People who go to the movies need a little more information than people that are reading the books. We knew we weren’t going to make it through the whole campaign without revealing the co-star.”
A co-star who shows up at the end of Act One and plays a huge, huge role moving ahead in the story. We’ll have more on just how big a role Rocky plays, as well as more information on the relationship between him and Grace, on Monday. For now, what do you think of the final trailer for Project Hail Mary? It opens March 20.
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