Ryan Gosling has fronted another hit movie in the form of “Project Hail Mary.” The film electrified the box office with a record-breaking debut and left everyone wanting more spaceman adventures set in the cosmos. If you’ve seen it and you’re in the mood for more sci-fi movies like “Project Hail Mary,” then you should definitely check out 2015’s “The Martian.”
Based on the novel by Andy Weir, who also penned the “Project Hail Mary” book, “The Martian” sees Matt Damon portray astronaut Mark Watney, who experiences a terrifying ordeal during a Mars mission gone wrong. After an accident leaves him stranded on the red planet and presumed dead, Mark needs to use his know-how as a botanist and mechanical engineer to survive while hoping that NASA returns to pick him up and take him back to Earth.
Directed by Ridley Scott from a script written by Drew Goddard, who also wrote the film adaptation of “Project Hail Mary,” “The Martian” was also a box office hit, making over $630 million worldwide. The film won two Golden Globes and was nominated for best picture at the Academy Awards, with Damon and Goddard also being nominated for the best actor and best adapted screenplay Oscars, respectively.
Read more: 10 Star Trek Deleted Scenes That Would Have Changed Everything
Drew Goddard was the only choice to write Project Hail Mary
Mark Watney kneeling on Mars in The Martian – 20th Century Studios
“The Martian” laid the foundation for “Project Hail Mary” to become a success. Both films are adored by critics and audiences alike: On Rotten Tomatoes, “The Martian” has 91% on both the Tomatometer and Popcornmeter, while “Project Hail Mary” holds a 95% critical approval rating and a 96% audience score at the time of this writing. While both novels are great, this is arguably a case of sci-fi movies being better than the books they’re based on, and a lot of that comes down to Drew Goddard.
Goddard had form when it came to adapting books into big films, having penned the script for “World War Z.” He’s become known as a highly capable and reliable writer, working on everything from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Lost” to Netflix’s “Daredevil” series, which he created. For Andy Weir, Goddard was the only choice to adapt his story, so he and directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller asked for him specifically. “He did such a good job on ‘The Martian,’ and so we wanted Drew so much that we put the whole project on hold for about six months, because he was booked up with other things,” Weir told IGN.
While there are some things in “Project Hail Mary” that are different from the book, it’s ultimately a pretty faithful adaptation, never straying too far from the source material. When Weir and Goddard sat down for a joint interview with Collider, the latter revealed that his work on “The Martian” helped him a lot when it came to adapting “Project Hail Mary.” Goddard said: “I think the biggest lesson from ‘The Martian’ was we learned from the audience you don’t need to dumb it down. In fact, the audience likes it when you speak up to them, when you assume they’re smart enough to figure it out.”
If you enjoyed this article, sign up to our free newsletter for the biggest movie and TV news delivered straight to your inbox. You can also add us as a preferred search source on Google.
Read the original article on Looper.