Project Hail Mary Is Doing So Well at the Box Office That There's Already Talk of Turning It Into a Franchise — and Don't Forget the Merch Potential of Rocky

Project Hail Mary is doing truthful good astatine the planetary container bureau that there’s speech of turning it into a franchise with a sequel.

The Ryan Gosling-fronted adaptation of the caller of the aforesaid sanction launched large astatine the planetary container office, bringing successful an awesome $140 cardinal during its opening weekend. It earned $80,583,746 domestically and $60.4 cardinal internationally, for an awesome $140,983,746 planetary total. Project Hail Mary is lone the 3rd non-sequel oregon non-franchise movie to unfastened supra $50 cardinal internationally successful the post-COVID epoch (since 2020), sitting alongside Oppenheimer and F1: The Movie. On a like-for-like ground excluding China, Project Hail Mary's opening play was connected par with Interstellar and Dune. It besides secured the biggest planetary debut of 2026 truthful far, beating Scream 7’s $97 cardinal opening weekend.

$27.6 cardinal of the full opening play container bureau came from IMAX, showing the request to ticker the Phil Lord and Christopher Miller-directed sci-fi epic connected tremendous screens. Indeed, IMAX made up 20.3% of the home total, making it conscionable the 3rd movie successful IMAX past to scale implicit 20% with an wide opening greater than $80 million.

Project Hail Mary is comfortably Amazon MGM Studios' highest-grossing movie debut, surpassing Creed III (Amazon’s adjacent big-budget merchandise successful theaters this twelvemonth is Masters of the Universe successful June). According to Variety, Project Hail Mary carried a $200 cardinal budget, truthful it inactive has immoderate mode to spell earlier it moves into nett during its theatrical run. But based connected this start, it has a decent accidental of doing so.

So, possibly it should travel arsenic small astonishment to perceive that Hollywood is already reasoning astir Project Hail Mary 2. According to a study from The Hollywood Reporter, determination are presently nary authoritative talks betwixt writer Andy Weir and Amazon MGM Studios, but “a sequel isn’t retired of the question.” THR highlights the merchandise accidental presented by the adorable alien, Rocky.

While determination are nary authoritative conversations underway betwixt Weir and Amazon MGM, insiders corroborate a sequel isn’t retired of the question. (The merchandising imaginable of Rocky, played by James Ortiz, is substantial.) Weir, who besides wrote The Martian, is said to beryllium “in the driver’s seat,” which suggests he’d person to constitute a Project Hail Mary follow-up for further adaptations to instrumentality place.

Is this likely? In a caller interrogation with The New York Times, Weir was asked if helium would ever bash a sequel successful immoderate way. He replied: “Absolutely, I person ideas for sequels for Project Hail Mary, but I conscionable don’t person a bully capable 1 yet. My adjacent book, the 1 I’m moving connected now, is not a sequel to thing that I’ve written.”

So, don’t clasp your enactment for Project Hail Mary 2. But it does dependable possible… eventually. After all, erstwhile Hollywood has a deed connected its hands, much often than not, we get much of it.

IGN’s Project Hail Mary reappraisal returned an 8/10. We said: “Project Hail Mary is simply a rollicking sci-fi blockbuster celebrating however overmuch we tin execute erstwhile we enactment together… and however overmuch meet-cute mileage you tin get retired of watching Ryan Gosling befriend a stone alien for 2 and a fractional hours.”

If you're funny to cheque retired the root material, look nary further than the iupcoming Deluxe Edition. It's disposable to preorder for $37.28 from Amazon present (down from $40), and releases connected December 1 of this year. Otherwise, the modular paperback is besides included successful Amazon's latest 3 for 2 sale.