Project Hail Mary (2026)

[Jim Cassedy]

<edited> I really liked the Adam
Savage (ex Myth Busters) "behind the scenes" video.

Adam is a frequent customer at my venue, and he's also hosted a
few shows here. I saw him at one of the OPPENHEIMER (70mm)
shows, although some staff told me he came several times to see it.
In fact it's mostly film events that I've noticed him at. While my
apartment building was being remodeled, I was temporarily living
just down the street from the Mythbusters 'lab' and I sometimes
used to see the cast & crew grabbing lunch at a local market.

We missed out on opening P-H-M in 5/70 due to the auditorium
getting new seats, carpets and some lighting fixes. We had an
exclusive arrangement for 5/70, and NO other theater in the SF
bay area was showing it in that format. (To the best of my
knowledge, it still hasn't been shown in 5/70 anywhere in
the SF area) Our main auditorium is re-opening tomorrow, and
we will have P-H-M in Barco HDR, and I've been told we will
most likely be getting a 5/70 print to run the weekend of April 17th
thru 19th. I haven't gotten that in writing yet, so I'm not sure that's
been 100% confirmed, but I'm going to get the JJ's converted to
70mm & tested later this week.

[Barry Floyd]

We had an older couple at the show tonight. The man had convinced his wife that it was a "football movie."

To be fair, the poster image of Ryan Gosling kinda sorta looks like he's wearing football shoulder pads.

To make matters more confusing, there actually IS a movie called "HAIL MARY" by director/actor Daniel Roebuck that is a "football movie". Danny (Daniel Roebuck) has come to the Drive-In Owners Convention down in Orlando for the last several years to promote his independent movies and we watched his "HAIL MARY" one night at the convention this year. He had shown us an early version of it about two years ago, and the final version he played this year had been reworked and looked a whole lot better. I saw on Facebook this morning that the Becky's Drive-in in Pennsylvania is playing a "HAIL MARY" / "PROJECT HAIL MARY" double feature this weekend.

[Mike Blakesley]

Amazon/MGM announced at CinemaCon that they have decided to extend the theatrical window for this show since it's still packing 'em in. There seemed to be a realization at CinemaCon that....hallelujah...windows make sense!!

[Jim Cassedy]

All of the little models in that video remind me of a video I saw some
years ago about the making of the Space: 1999 television series. They had made
plastic models or their moonbase and spaceships using parts from model kits like
rockets and fighter jets that they used for scenes of flying around or exploding, or
static external scenes of the moon's surface with the moonbase and the ships on it.

I grew up watching the very creative British puppet si-fi shows like FIREBALL XL-5 and THE
THUNDERBIRDS. The sets and miniature rocket ships and the various land and underwater
vehicles they built for the series were incredibly detailed. But even as a kid, I could often spot
some common household item incorporated into their miniature sets. One of the most well
known was this kitchen juicer, that was used as part of the "Thunderbird 1" launch silo.

THUNDERBIRDS_JUICER.jpg

Whatever is on the same wall, just below the juicer, is another item that looks like it might
have come from a Tupperware party.

[Steve Guttag]

It is rare now that I go to the theatre to watch a movie but I did for this one...and with the family.

Theatre: AFI/Silver, screen 1
Format: 70mm DTS-6-track audio with a mixed ratio of 2.39:1 (Earth) and 2:1 (space).

I really enjoyed this movie and it has repeat viewing potential. It had most everything I want in a movie. Good story, good movie making, good acting. The music was fine though not John Williams or the like fine. The sound mix was understated, which was fine too. Be sure not to turn the fader down on this one. You can play it at "7" (and you should).

I'd give it a 4 out of 5 stars. It probably could be edited a little in places to tighten it up and lower its running time.

I'm not a fan of the mixed aspect ratio thing though, at least, with this one, they had one for space and one for Earth. So, I guess it made some sort of sense. The problem with those ratios for 70mm is, if you have masking, you are going to pick which format to support...the full height or the full width. If you put in your 2.20 stuff to get the 2:1 full height, you will have pillar box bars for 2:1 and 2.39:1 letterbox bars. If you lens/mask for 2.39:!, you'll crop about 10% on the 2:1 sections but that is probably the lesser of the two evils. Your "space" sequences would be at 2.22. This brings me to...just release it in a single ratio at 2.20 and compromise at that. There are a ton of features in 70mm that did just fine at that ratio and it is its natural format. Save the format changes for IMAX though I can't see how it really benefits the story so much.