With an $80.6 million domestic opening weekend, a 95% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 96% audience score, Project Hail Mary is an undeniable blockbuster hit. By its second weekend, the movie crossed $300 million worldwide and dethroned Avatar: Fire and Ash as the top-grossing Hollywood film of 2026 in North America. It's become the second-biggest non-franchise opening over the past decade, after Oppenheimer.

The Hollywood Reporter published a piece titled "Project Hail Mary: 4 Lessons Hollywood Won't Learn From Its Success," pointing to smart storytelling, sincerity, patience, and practical effects as the pillars behind the film's blockbuster performance. That's a solid four. But, it predictably missed the fifth, and arguably most important point: Don't go woke.

In the movie, Ryan Gosling plays Ryland Grace, a science teacher and biologist who wakes up alone on a deep-space mission to figure out how to stop a microorganism from dimming the sun. He eventually makes contact with an alien on the same mission, and the two team up to save their respective worlds from extinction. The premise could have easily become a vehicle for climate allegory and geopolitical moralizing, but it didn't.