Amazon MGM's upcoming sci-fi film "Project Hail Mary" will run 156 minutes and, according to its directors, was shot without a single green or blue screen shot in the entire movie.

Co-director Christopher Miller revealed that the studio's big-budget adaptation of Andy Weir's novel was filmed entirely on physical sets, including a full build of the spaceship interior and a large section of the exterior.

He explained that every shot relied on practical environments rather than traditional greenscreen stages, an unusual approach for a modern space-set production of this scale, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

The film, directed by Phil Lord and Miller and starring Ryan Gosling as astronaut Ryland Grace, has an officially confirmed runtime of 156 minutes, just over two and a half hours. Classification boards and studio representatives have reiterated that this is the final cut length after earlier conflicting listings suggested a longer version.

Lord and Miller said the production team built the spacecraft interior as a continuous set so that cinematographer Greig Fraser could move the camera freely and capture performances in a more spontaneous way.

They added that Rocky, the alien character central to the story, was present on set as a physical creation for actors to interact with, before digital artists refined the character in post-production, Bleeding Cool reported.

In Andy Weir's book, the story begins with Ryland Grace waking up alone on a spacecraft, surrounded by two dead crewmates and with no memory of who he is or why he is there.

As his memories return, he learns that he has been sent on a one-way mission to investigate Astrophage, a star-eating microorganism that is draining energy from the Sun and threatening to plunge Earth into an ice age.

Grace discovers that the Tau Ceti star system is mysteriously unaffected and travels there to uncover a solution that could save humanity from extinction. In Tau Ceti, he encounters Rocky, an engineer from an alien civilization whose own star is also under assault, and the two form an unlikely partnership built around problem-solving and survival.

Working together, they identify Taumoeba, a microbe that preys on Astrophage, offering a possible cure for both their systems. In the novel's climax, Grace must choose between returning to Earth with the data or turning back to save Rocky's world, ultimately sacrificing his chance to go home so that both planets can live, as per The Bibliolife.

Tags
Ryan gosling, Film, Movie