Many movie fans already have their sights set on the end of 2026, when three of the most ambitious sci-fi movies of the year are all set to come out on the same day. The biggest pure sci-fi movie arriving in theaters on December 18, 2026, is Dune: Part Three, the final chapter in Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi saga that launched back in 2021. Opening in theaters on the same day as Dune 3 is Avengers: Doomsday, which will likely post higher box-office numbers than its Arrakis-set counterpart. This is largely due to it being the MCU’s first Avengers movie in seven years, and the first Marvel movie since Avengers: Endgame to star Robert Downey Jr. Netflix also announced this week that Brad Bird’s sci-fi detective thriller, Ray Gunn, will begin streaming on the very same day.
However, while it’s easy to look ahead at everything that’s to come this year, one of the most successful sci-fi movies of all time has already happened. The film in question is Project Hail Mary, the space epic starring Ryan Gosling and directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller (writers and producers of Into and Across the Spider-Verse). Project Hail Mary is based on the novel of the same name by Andy Weir, who also wrote the sci-fi novel The Martian that inspired Ridley Scott’s 2015 film. According to Goodreads, Project Hail Mary has officially become the most-read novel of 2026, not only in the sci-fi genre, but including all genres of novels, fiction or nonfiction. This comes after the film earned acclaim for being such a faithful adaptation of the source material, which most book readers would claim is still a better version of the story.
Was ‘Project Hail Mary’ a Successful Movie?
Project Hail Mary was a massive success by nearly every metric a movie can be measured. The film came out of the gates strong with scores of 94% from critics and 95% from audiences on the aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, making it one of the highest-rated movies of the year. It then put up $683 million at the global box office, turning a profit off its massive $200 million budget, before also becoming a smash hit on VOD. The film was added to MGM+ last week, where it’s currently the most popular movie in the world.
Check out Project Hail Mary on MGM+ and stay tuned to Collider for all the biggest sci-fi projects coming later this year.
- Release Date
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March 15, 2026
- Runtime
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157 minutes
- Director
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Christopher Miller, Phil Lord
- Writers
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Drew Goddard, Andy Weir
- Producers
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Aditya Sood, Amy Pascal, Andy Weir, Christopher Miller, Phil Lord, Rachel O’Connor, Ryan Gosling































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