After an early career that was filled with indie dramas and romances, Ryan Gosling has lately come to embrace sci-fi and space epics. His last two films were the 2017 sci-fi sequel Blade Runner 2049 and the 2018 Neil Armstrong biopic First Man, and now the heartthrob is set to embrace the genre once more.
Gosling has signed on to star in and produce the sci-fi film The Hail Mary, which will be based on the upcoming novel of the same name by author Andy Weir. Yes, you read that right, this book isn’t even out yet and it’s already getting a bid budget movie adaptation. But that’s the kind of power Weir now possesses after his debut novel, The Martian, was turned into a blockbuster film that earned over $600 million at the box office in 2015.
The Hail Mary is due to be published in 2021, and it will tell the story of an astronaut trapped alone in a spaceship as he tries to save the world. So basically it sounds like Gravity but with the protagonist trying to save the entire world instead of just herself. Gosling will be playing the astronaut in the film version, which makes sense since it doesn’t sound like there’s a whole lot of potential for other characters.
There’s no word yet on when the film, which MGM is producing, will be released, but the novel The Hail Mary is expected to hit shelves next spring.
