Amazon MGM Studios, Sony Pictures International
Armed with a $200 million budget, you would think that Phil Lord and Chris Miller‘s sci-fi feature “Project Hail Mary” would be full of not just completely CG VFX shots for the space shots, but a lot of green screen for the scenes of Ryan Gosling interacting with an alien.
Turns out that’s not the case. The film, based on the novel by author Andy Weir (“The Martian”), follows a school teacher and former biologist onboard a spacecraft where he interacts with an alien named ‘Rocky’ in an effort to save their solar system’s stars from dying.
Rocky himself is essentially a boulder with arms and legs, and much of the movie seems to be about their interactions. Speaking with ComicBook.com to promote the film, Miller says the project uses no green screen or blue screen at all.
Instead, huge chunks of the spaceship’s interior and exterior were built practically, as was the Rocky creature, which gave the film’s cinematographer Greig Fraser (“Dune: Part One,” “The Batman”) a lot of freedom to shoot it:
“What’s fun about the movie is [that] there is no green screen in the movie whatsoever. Not a single green or blue screen was used. The whole ship was built as a set from the inside.
We had a huge section of the exterior of the ship on the outside that we built. Rocky was really with us at all times. That’s what makes it feel real and makes it feel natural.
The way that Greig’s team lit with a lot of practical lights allowed him to move the camera wherever and find these moments because we could see this thing that Rocky was doing and then move over to [Ryan Gosling’s character] Grace and see his reaction to what was really happening, and you weren’t just guessing and pointing out where Rocky might be some day. And that’s what makes it feel like it was captured in the moment.”
Drew Goddard penned the script for the film. The first trailer was the biggest trailer launch in Amazon MGM Studios’ history back in July. Sandra Hüller and Milana Vayntrub co-star in the film opening March 20th.