After years of turning everything from aching romance to neon spectacle into pure big-screen magnetism, Ryan Gosling seems to have landed another crowd-pulling chapter with his latest sci-fi swing. Best known for headline-making turns in films like La La Land, Barbie, and Drive, the actor is now back in orbit with, a high-stakes space thriller that is already making serious noise before the full weekend dust even settles.

Gosling’s latest outing is less about proving his range and more about confirming a suspicion: give him a screen, and he will find a way to fill it, and the $11 Million and counting is proof.

Ryland Grace, the lone astronaut-scientist played by Ryan Gosling in Project Hail Mary, is carrying a mission where Earth’s survival hangs in the balance, and now that same high-stakes space gamble is already exploding into a win off screen too.

Deadline reported that the film pulled in more than $11 million in previews, marking the strongest preview total of 2026 so far and pushing past Scream 7’s $7.8 million and even Oppenheimer’s $10.5 million preview start. The outlet also noted that opening-weekend projections had climbed to over $60 million, while opening-night audiences handed the film a five-star PostTrak score, giving Gosling’s latest sci-fi swing an even louder early lift.

And this lift did not arrive quietly either, as the film rolled through 29 early 70mm shows last weekend before expanding into Prime member screenings in PLFs and IMAX ahead of the regular preview run. In that climb, Project Hail Mary delivered the biggest preview result ever for an Amazon MGM Studios release, overtaking Creed III’s $5.4 million mark, while also landing as arguably the second-strongest preview launch of Gosling’s career behind only Barbie’s $22.3 million.

However, as Gosling keeps riding the headline wave for Project Hail Mary’s early win, here are the other faces helping power this interstellar ride.

With Project Hail Mary now sitting as Ryan Gosling’s highest-rated film on Rotten Tomatoes at 95%, the interstellar lift is clearly not his alone. Alongside Gosling, the sci-fi epic also features Sandra Hüller as Eva Stratt, James Ortiz as Rocky, Lionel Boyce as Carl, Milana Vayntrub as Olesya Ilyukhina, and Ken Leung as Yáo Li-Jie, rounding out the core cast powering the film’s emotional pull and cosmic scale.

Released globally in theatres on March 20, 2026, Project Hail Mary follows lone astronaut-scientist Ryland Grace as he wakes up aboard a spacecraft with Earth’s survival hanging on his mission. With that high-stakes space story now winning over early audiences too, the film’s lift-off is clearly landing far beyond just box office noise.While another title in the same piece, Ready or Not 2, was tracking far lower.

However, Project Hail Mary is now even eyeing a possible $100 million-plus worldwide opening, making it clear this sci-fi surge is nowhere near done gathering speed yet even after hitting $11M+ in previews.

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What are your thoughts on Project Hail Mary’s huge early box office win? Let us know in the comments.