Fortunately for fans, Weir is thrilled!

Good news! He loves it!

During an interview with USA Today, Weir expressed his admiration for Lord and Miller, stating they “could not have done a better job” in translating his bestselling novel to the big screen. He was particularly impressed with their portrayal of Rocky, the alien companion to Gosling’s character, Dr. Ryland Grace. James Ortiz lends his voice and puppeteering skills to bring Rocky to life. Weir praised the duo’s animation expertise, as seen in the “Spider-Verse” films, saying, “They know how to do animation, and animation is what’s necessary to have a faceless rock be something that you care about. It all has to be done via body language and motion.” Rocky’s character is indeed charming, but Weir reserved special accolades for Ryan Gosling, especially since much of Gosling’s screen time is solitary, unless it’s in flashbacks or scenes with Rocky.

Weir shared with USA Today that he often doesn’t picture his characters vividly, as he is more engrossed in the scientific elements of his stories. Gosling, however, was a perfect fit for the role of Ryland. “He added a lot of nuance to the character, just via body language and alternate lines,” Weir commented. “He would come up with other lines. He got to ad lib, of course. So he ended up with a much deeper, more nuanced version of Ryland than I ever wrote.” This experience has inspired Weir to enhance the depth of his literary characters, acknowledging, “I think that’s like my biggest weakness as a writer, in my opinion, is character depth and complexity. I’ve come up with interesting plots and interesting fake science, but my characters are kind of shallow and so I’m working on that.”

Weir again highlighted Gosling’s stellar contribution to the film. “It’s great to have someone like Ryan come in and add all these layers that I didn’t have in the original,” he said with a laugh. “Everyone’s going to watch the movie and they’ll ascribe all those layers and complexity to me as the original book writer. And that’s great. All Ryan’s work, all my credit.”

Elsewhere in Rolling Stone, Weir said that even though his book “The Martian” was also adapted into a film, he spent more time working on “Project Hail Mary” as a listed producer, and he learned a lot. “I really saw how the sausage gets made,” he mused. “I didn’t realize how much creativity and actual writing that the actors bring to a story.” 

Once again, this is where Weir turned his attention to how great Gosling is in the film. “It’s great to have someone like Ryan come in and add all these layers that I didn’t have in the original,” he laughed. “Everyone’s going to watch the movie and they’ll ascribe all those layers and complexity to me as the original book writer. And that’s great. All Ryan’s work, all my credit.”

Something that probably shouldn’t surprise you, if you’ve seen both big screen adaptations of Andy Weir’s books, is that Weir has formed an incredibly successful partnership with screenwriter Drew Goddard. During a joint interview with Collider, interviewer Steve Weintraub suggested that the two work together way, way more. “That works for me,” Weir replied. “We agree,” Goddard confirmed. 

“All you’ve got to do is make sure studios are willing to give us, like, $150, $200 million to make a movie, and we’d be happy to just keep cranking ’em out,” Weir continued, at which point Goddard said, “Also, you need to keep writing faster.” This answer turned out to be particularly funny because, as Weir tells it, he and the directing duo of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller only wanted Goddard to write the script after he did such a great job with “The Martian.” 

According to Weir, “We had to wait months for him. We weren’t interested in having any other screenwriter do this, so we actually just held up the project because he was busy on something else. Our list of potential screenwriters was one: Drew Goddard.” (Goddard cheekily replied, “Thank God they waited.”)

All in all, “Project Hail Mary” has proven to be a resounding success for Weir, Goddard, Lord, Miller, and Ryan Gosling alike, so it would be great if even some combination of these guys keep working together. In any case, “Project Hail Mary” is in theaters now.