Lord and Miller on Project Hail Mary, Spielberg, and Solo
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- Project Hail Mary adapts Andy Weir's hard-science novel with Ryan Gosling as Dr. Ryland Grace, a teacher sent on a one-way mission to stop a parasitic microbe from blotting out the sun, with Drew Goddard — who also adapted The Martian in 2015 — writing the script
- Lord and Miller won DGA approval to co-direct only after a panel including Steven Spielberg and Jon Favreau grilled them on what happens if one gets sick, with Miller likening it to 'a Senate hearing'
- Gosling sent Lord and Miller the manuscript in the post to lure them in, then plays Grace opposite an alien named Rocky who communicates only in 'singsong chirrups' — a relationship Miller calls one of the film's biggest achievements
- The duo were fired from Solo: A Star Wars Story in 2017 over creative differences, with Ron Howard taking over the film that subsequently lost more than $100m at the box office
- Clone High, their MTV animated show about teenage clones of historical figures, was cancelled after a mass hunger strike in New Delhi over its depiction of Gandhi — a character dropped when the show was revived in 2023
- Project Hail Mary carries what Miller calls the utopian message that 'communication and empathy can help you solve what seem like impossible problems,' pitched against the doom of its climate-collapse premise
- Lord and Miller met as undergraduates at Dartmouth College and have directed as a single unit ever since, with Lord noting 'every once in a while the polarities flip and one of us winds up compensating for the other'
Why it matters: Lord and Miller's survival of a high-profile firing from Solo — a film that lost more than $100m after Ron Howard replaced them — and their return to the sci-fi tentpole stage with Project Hail Mary demonstrates that the co-directing model the DGA once questioned now anchors two of Hollywood's most distinctive franchises. For the pair, every new swing carries the 'winning and learning' credo forged across the Clone High cancellation, Cloudy turmoil, and Solo exit.
