Project Hail Mary—a space opera starring and co-produced by Ryan Gosling—is shaping up to be one of the biggest films of the year, earning more than $550 million at the box office worldwide since it opened on March 20 and garnering rave reviews from critics and general audiences alike. In recent weeks, however, this seemingly innocuous movie has also become the subject of an unlikely controversy that raises questions about technoliberalism, author intent, and the politics of science fiction.
The controversy began in late March, when Andy Weir—author of The Martian, Artemis, and the eponymous novel on which Project Hail Mary is based—appeared on a podcast hosted by conservative film critic Will Jordan, better known online as the Critical Drinker.
Many of Weir’s fans were surprised at this appearance. Jordan, whose YouTube channel has more than 2.4 million subscribers, is a major player in the Western culture wars. He has been a guest on both Piers Morgan Uncensored and The Ben Shapiro Show, and Jordan’s reviews—which routinely accuse Hollywood blockbusters with diverse casts of spreading “woke” propaganda—serve as gateways to both the alt-right and the manosphere. A main theme of Jordan’s content is the anti-woke call to “make movies great again,” cultivating nostalgia for a time when most main characters in media were white, male, and unabashedly heroic.
More baffling to his critics than Weir’s appearance on this podcast was the conversation that ensued. Talking about the success of Project Hail Mary—which Jordan attributed to the fact that the film did not try to “shove, like, crappy identity politics into it”—the author replied: “I think you and me are kind of on the same wavelength there when it comes to fiction writing. I never put any politics or messaging in any of my stories at all. There’s no, you know, there’s no deeper meaning; there isn’t even any symbolism, even nonpolitical. There’s just no symbolism at all. My books are always just purely to entertain.”
As someone who enjoyed both the film and the book, I find this statement questionable for several reasons. For starters, there are many other possible explanations for why Project Hail Mary is a hit beyond the apparent absence of politics, not least its gripping premise and lovable characters. Protagonist Ryland Grace—a nerdy, cowardly astrobiologist-turned-middle school science teacher—is shot into deep space as part of a last-ditch effort to find the natural predator of an extraterrestrial microorganism that’s slowly devouring the sun. Along the way, he crosses paths with a spider-like alien astronaut he calls Rocky, whose species is in the same boat as ours. Teaming up, the two develop an unusual but strong and deeply moving friendship.
Further enriching the film adaptation are Gosling’s star power, the irreverent humor inserted by co-directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller—known for comedies such as The Lego Movie, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and 21 Jump Street—and visual effects that turn Rocky into what one outlet dubbed “the most expressive faceless character in sci-fi.” Put differently, it is not an absence of politics that makes Project Hail Mary engaging but the combined presence of all these other elements.
Author Andy Weir signs copies of Project Hail Mary at Comic-Con International in San Diego on July 27, 2025.Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images
