Phil Lord and Chris Miller are heading to space.
The duo will direct Project Hail Mary for MGM, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed. They will also produce the thriller.
Heat Vision breakdown
The project has Ryan Gosling attached to star, and is an adaptation of The Martian author Andy Weir's forthcoming novel, which is due out spring 2021 from Random House.
The novel centers on an astronaut on a spaceship that is tasked with saving the planet. Gosling, who will play the lead, last appeared on the big screen in the 2018 biopic First Man, in which he starred as famed astronaut Neil Armstrong.
This is the latest big swing for MGM since it hired veteran Michael De Luca as film chairman in January. In addition to picking the Weir manuscript for an eye-pooping $3 million, De Luca also spearheaded the acquisition of Gucci, with Lady Gaga attached to star and Ridely Scott on board to direct, among several other strong-armed moves.
Aditya Sood, the president of film for the filmmakers' Lord Miller production banner, will also produce the thriller as will Amy Pascal, who ran Sony when the duo made their 21 Jump Street movies. She also was a producer with the filmmakers on Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which won the animated feature Oscar.
Lord and Miller set a first-look deal at Universal last summer, and while they put several projects into development, nothing had yet emerged as a strong directing contender for them.
Lord and Miller are repped by UTA.
