Ryan Gosling’s new sci-fi film Project Hail Mary has collected $80.5 million on its box office launch, making it the largest debut of the year so far.
The release marks a much-needed win for Amazon MGM after a series of flops, shattering its previous opening weekend record set by 2023’s Creed III, which made $58 million.
Project Hail Mary comes out in front of Scream 7, which is the second-largest opening of the year, taking $63 million in February.
The film, which follows Gosling as a schoolteacher tasked with travelling into space to save the world, was projected to earn $65 million at the domestic box office, but its opening weekend was strengthened by positive reviews and adverts shown at the Oscars last week.
Project Hail Mary also scored a strong $60.4 million at the international box office for a global start of $140.9 million.
Kevin Wilson, Amazon MGM’s distribution chief, said in a statement that audiences believe in the film.
“What we’re seeing in theaters — the energy, the exit scores, the word of mouth — is everything we believed this film would deliver,” he said.
The Gosling movie cost $200 million to make, plus several million to market, according to Variety, so there is still some way to go until Amazon can recoup its cost.
The debut comes after Jeff Bezos’s Amazon MGM has experienced several box office flops, most notably the January release of Melania, which followed the First Lady in the 20 days leading up to Trump’s second inauguration, across global theaters.
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The film, which was critically panned across the board and branded a piece of propaganda by some, generated $16 million at the box office, which fell short in comparison to its hefty $40 million price tag.
The studio’s thriller Crime 101 starring Chris Hemsworth also didn’t meet box office targets, grossing just $65 million against a $90 million budget after its release in Febuary.
Project Hail Mary has been better received among critics, with The Independent’s film critic Clarisee Loughrey awarding the film four stars, remarking that it is “an alchemically perfected blend of past sci-fi greats, with a good dose of Spielberg and Kubrick – familiar without feeling exhausted.”
Loughrey also praised the film’s “top-shelf nostalgia” and the fact is was “immaculate to look at.”
“Project Hail Mary was clearly made to catapult a certain segment of the audience back to their childhoods – it carries the same fetishisation of late Sixties and Seventies sound and production design as recent fare in the Alien franchise,” she writes.
Project Hail Mary is adapted from Andy Weir’s best-selling novel of the same name. His 2011 book, The Martian, was made into a 2015 sci-film directed by Ridley Scott.
