Project Hail Mary Wins Sloan Science in Cinema Prize — SkimNews
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- SFFILM and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation announced the Sloan Science in Cinema award will go to "Project Hail Mary," including a $20,000 cash prize and a special screening on October 28 at One Letterman in San Francisco.
- Amazon MGM Studios is positioning the Phil Lord– and Chris Miller–directed film as its "most potent Best Picture vehicle to date," with planned fall screenings and tastemaker events following its $684 million worldwide box office gross.
- Ryan Gosling is in the Best Actor conversation for portraying a scientist marooned on a spacecraft, alongside Sandra Hüller and James Ortiz, who plays the extraterrestrial Rocky.
- The award program will feature a panel conversation with Lord, Miller, Oscar-nominated screenwriter Drew Goddard, VFX supervisors Paul Lambert and Mag Sarnowska, sound team Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van der Ryn, and astrophysical scientist Dr. Ron Radeztsky, who served as the film's astrometric systems modeling engineer.
- "Project Hail Mary" joins past Sloan Science in Cinema Prize recipients including "Oppenheimer," "Twisters," "Don't Look Up," "Hidden Figures," and "The Martian," reinforcing the prize's track record of backing science-forward Oscar contenders.
- Sloan Foundation VP Doron Weber praised the film for using "physics, astronomy, and microbiology to solve existential problems facing a variety of species," calling Andy Weir's source novel an "endearing and inventive" adaptation.
Why it matters: The Sloan Prize slots Project Hail Mary into a lineage of science-respecting Oscar winners like "Oppenheimer" and "The Martian" at a moment when Amazon MGM is actively re-lobbying Academy voters for a March release. The October 28 screening and filmmaker panel give the studio a concrete, timed event to keep the film in conversation six months after its theatrical run, and Gosling's Best Actor positioning now has an extra institutional credential attached to it.
Ask SkimNews
