Jonathan: Project Hail Mary has passed $226 million at the domestic box office, not including global numbers. It opened to $80.5 million on March 20th and followed with $54.5 million in its second weekend, only a 32% drop. As of early April, the title has earned $226 million in North America and $430 million more worldwide. Amazon MGM Studios is calling it the company’s highest-grossing release ever. From what I’m seeing on social media, it’s driven by rewatches and word of mouth from people having such a good time that they’re pulling others into theaters.
What psychological need is this film meeting?
Thomas: We’ve talked about understanding the psychological reason your reader picks up your genre and how there is no universal motivation for reading a book or watching a movie. I watched Project Hail Mary with my wife, and one of my first comments afterward was that this movie is all about the male loneliness epidemic. She had no idea it scratched that itch. A movie can scratch more than one itch, but this one hits a big one.
Starting with television and several societal changes in the 1970s, people’s social circles have contracted. People went from five best friends in the eighties to four in the nineties to three in the 2000s to zero for a lot of people today, particularly younger people. They’re not making friends. Face-to-face time has gone way down and screen time has gone way up. Some trends that look positive on the surface, like young people drinking less, are actually symptoms of isolation. Loneliness will kill you faster than alcoholism.
It’s getting to the point where some people’s view of friendship has become so distorted that they feel the only kind of relationship can be a sexual one, the kind of view advocated by people at Penguin Random House who are trying to sexualize childhood friendships unnecessarily.
In Greek, there are many words for love. English just has one. The Greeks had the word eros for romantic and sexual attraction, phileo for brotherly love, the love of comrades in arms, and storge for maternal love or the warmth of puppies snuggled together. C.S. Lewis breaks down four of these words in The Four Loves. Phileo love is the rarest love in American culture right now, and I think it’s why this movie is doing so well in America, better than it’s doing globally.
The relationship between the protagonists can’t be sexual because they can’t even touch each other. They are so alien to each other that they can’t breathe each other’s air. Learning to communicate is this huge challenge, and it’s a journey of growing a friendship from first principles. It’s deeply satisfying. The movie knows which itch it’s scratching. Should your book scratch that same itch? Not necessarily. There are a lot of psychological needs out there. But this is a big one, a broad one, and one that very few stories are addressing, which is why this particular story is doing so well.
Jonathan: I’m a big follower of the Predator franchise. I liked Predator one and two, loved AVP, thought everything after that was awful, and then really liked Prey. When they released Predator: Badlands, there was bad press because the predator looked like a Gen Z kid, young, without the full crest of dreadlocks, wearing them in a little ponytail. People made fun of it. I watched it a couple weeks ago and immediately watched it again.
It was so enjoyable because it hits this male loneliness theme. The predator in that movie is a younger brother whose older brother stood up for him to their father. The father killed the older brother for trying to protect the younger one. The younger brother escapes to a death planet where he has to hunt and kill something no predator has ever killed before, but he builds a family while doing it. He adopts a different model of what it means to be a hunter, a protector, a dominant force. Someone tells him about the wolf, how the alpha male in the wolf pack is the one who protects all the others. That creates a new framework for this young predator. He becomes pretty cool. It’s a good movie that hits all my buttons, built around the question of what it means to be male, to be masculine, to be a protector.
Thomas: One thing to realize when you’re targeting men with a story is that it doesn’t turn away women the way that targeting women with a story turns away men.
Jonathan: My wife and my sister-in-law are Jane Austen fans. I made them watch Predator: Badlands with me the second time because I said they were going to like it. They were skeptical because it’s a Predator movie. They enjoyed it because they connected with this kid becoming a man and deciding what kind of man he’s going to be.
Why do audiences crave ruthless characters right now?
Thomas: We’ve talked about how readers are craving ruthless characters. I warned two weeks ago I was going to spoil Project Hail Mary, so here we go. The Ryan Gosling character did not choose to get on the ship for this death mission. The female lead scientist drugged him and had him beaten and put onto the ship because it was required to save the planet. She sits him down and says, “You are going to go.” He says he’s too afraid. She tells him he can go the easy way or the hard way. He tries to run. He gets beaten. He goes anyway.
Very ruthless, but very much a story for dark times. We need ruthless heroes who do the difficult and dirty thing in order to save everyone. This is very much a fourth-turning film where the world is broken. There’s a catastrophe threatening all life, but it’s not a climate change catastrophe. The problem is an alien eating the sun, which really helped this movie. They could have so easily made it a preachy climate change story and chose not to. That was intentional, and it reoriented the story away from politics and toward friendship, character, and nobility, eternal principles that will cause this movie to resonate for years after the current political conversation moves on.
What can authors learn about glory and dénouement?
Thomas: Another thing we talked about on the show was glory and how audiences are longing for it. The filmmakers really take the time to let you feel the glory of success. They don’t just roll the credits. There’s a five-minute montage of celebration. Marvel never gave you that moment of glory. We’re just beginning the hunger for it.
This is something a lot of authors weren’t thinking about five years ago, but five years from now it’ll be expected. In craft books you learn about the dénouement, that moment after the climax where everything settles. The dénouement doesn’t always have to be about glory, but now that we’re in a fourth turning, a glory dénouement is a really safe bet. Maybe add one more chapter to the end of your story. Don’t end it so quickly. In the third turning and its grim-dark sensibility, you cut it off fast and let the reader sit in the sadness and hopelessness. But now, let the glory breathe. Your readers will finish with a much more powerful emotional experience, which will boost your reviews and recommendations.
Jonathan: Right in that same line, the Star Wars prequels have this problem. The end of Episode III was hopeless, and there wasn’t enough of the birth of Luke and Leia to bring the tone back up to where Star Wars is supposed to be, which is hopeful resistance against an oppressor. You can’t just say, “Well, that’s what Episodes IV, V, and VI are for.” Those were 30 years old by the time Episode III came out. You need that hopeful experience within the film itself to keep people locked into what you’re trying to do.
Thomas: By the time they made Episode III, we were very much in the third turning culturally, so there was pressure to match the zeitgeist. If you’re writing a true classic, you don’t have to follow the zeitgeist as carefully, because a classic can appeal across all the turnings. That’s what George Lucas was attempting with Star Wars. I don’t think he pulled it off. I watched it with my kids and they find it boring. Luke’s disrespectfulness is a real turnoff for them.
Jonathan: Nobody likes Luke Skywalker as a character. He whines, he doesn’t get the girl, he’s not funny. He has this spiritual journey, but everything about him is just annoying.
Are extended epilogues back?
Thomas: A viewer asks whether we’re back to extended epilogues. I think the blanket rule that epilogues are always bad is no longer a good rule. It’s easy to write a boring epilogue if you’re not careful, but if you know what emotional experience you’re creating for the reader, an epilogue is really beneficial.
My wife was working through a mystery she was struggling with, too many characters, a lot of issues. But the very best part was the dénouement. When the puzzle was finally solved and order was restored, the book let the epilogue linger. It wasn’t just “here’s who did it” and roll the credits. That basically saved the book for her. It was the only redeeming thing she had to say about it.
Thomas: Another thing about Project Hail Mary is that there are no sermons. Nobody gets up and preaches about climate change or politics. There are people who are angry about this, saying it was a missed opportunity to use the platform. There’s an effort in Hollywood to be upset that conservatives like the film, as though the filmmakers should have done more to make it distasteful to them. I keep thinking, do you not like money? I’m starting to believe that for certain people, they really don’t care about the money. For them it’s a religious crusade, and doing the right thing in their eyes is more important than profit.
What makes the character growth in this film work?
Thomas: One of the themes I really appreciated was the Ryan Gosling character learning how to sacrifice. His growth is a growth of character, learning to become a more virtuous person. The story is told non-linearly, which is risky because it’s almost always easier to write a linear story. But it works here because you wouldn’t have liked the character at the beginning. He’s cowardly and lazy. He’s learning heroism, virtue, wisdom. He was always smart, but he gets wiser.
This is where girl-boss fatigue comes from. If a character emerges on page one practically perfect in every way, there’s no room for growth or a meaningful journey. Here we see genuine character development. Half the scenes are Ryan Gosling alone on a spaceship, and it somehow holds your attention. There’s no CGI. It’s a space movie with no green screen. The alien character is run by five puppeteers in a giant robotic rig, so all the movements Ryan Gosling sees are real. They can act off each other, and it’s so much better.
Hollywood went overboard on CGI, and this is a warning for authors. CGI for Hollywood is what AI is for authors. “We’ll fix it with AI, we’ll fix it in post.” There’s something to be said for struggling through the blocking instead of kicking everything to the machine.
I also appreciated that the film had natural diversity rather than gratuitous diversity. There’s a council with people from around the world, but it’s not artificial. The whole world is going to die because the sun is dying, so all the nations are coming together. It was refreshing to see diversity that was natural to the plot rather than random race-swapping. If you want diversity in your story, write a diverse story. Don’t sprinkle it on at the end.
The other thing I liked is that heroism is what grows, not power. The Ryan Gosling character is no more powerful at the end than at the beginning. He doesn’t get smarter. He gets wiser and more virtuous. That’s refreshing. The early Marvel movies did this well. Iron Man went through real character growth. But it’s been rare since.
How does color and emotional range apply to authors?
Thomas: The third turning in film was marked by muted colors. Two films kicked it off. O Brother, Where Art Thou? took one of the most beautiful, lush parts of America and put a faded yellow sheen over everything because the world was ugly and the characters were criminals. The Matrix came out around the same time with a green sheen over everything because none of it was real. Every film since has had some kind of color muting. When Barbie came out with saturated colors, people were stunned. Movies can be beautiful. There’s a longing for saturated color.
How does this apply to authors? It doesn’t necessarily mean your cover should have saturated colors, but emotionally you can explore the full range now. In this noble-dark era, your book can be more colorful emotionally than what you could have gotten away with 10 years ago.
What’s the takeaway for the current storytelling moment?
Jonathan: I haven’t seen Project Hail Mary yet, so I don’t have anything to offer on it specifically. But I do see a turning in filmmaking toward exploring how to be a young man again, how to be a young woman again, how to be a good person.
We got a snapshot of that when Top Gun: Maverick came out and everyone was shocked that there was no political agenda. It was just a good story about a good hero who got to do his thing again and raised another generation to follow him. It was very hopeful, and I think people took notice. Now we’re getting the harvest of movies that followed Top Gun: Maverick.
Thomas: The turning affects the whole political spectrum. You’re hearing it from us and we lean right, but all stories are going to become noble-dark over the next 10 to 20 years because that’s what audiences and readers are demanding.
Jonathan: Supernatural is trending on Amazon again. It’s consistently one of the highest-performing streaming shows wherever it lands, Netflix or Amazon Prime. It’s noble-dark and it goes through its own turnings across the series. It’s about two young men who love each other as brothers and will do anything for their family. That’s a universal concept.
Thomas: The longing for stories that show phileo love is enormous. Cozy stories show storge love. I encourage every author to read The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis. The whole cozy genre is defined by storge love. Phileo love is where the easiest money is to be made because demand is high and supply is low. This is green pasture. You’re the first one skiing down fresh powder, and there’s going to be a whole horde of people following you. It’s why The Lord of the Rings is still so resonant. Those films do phileo love extraordinarily well.
Sources:
Project Hail Mary (2026) – Box Office Mojo
Project Hail Mary Box Office: Ryan Gosling Film Scores Biggest Debut of Year – Variety
‘Project Hail Mary’ Contains Not a Single Green Screen Shot, Director Says – The Hollywood Reporter
Project Hail Mary Is Actually About Male Loneliness – Esquire
How ‘Project Hail Mary’ Answers the Call for Positive Masculinity – Aaron Renn
