Project Hail Mary Is Doing So Well at the Box Office That There's Already Talk of Turning It Into a Franchise — and Don't Forget the Merch Potential of Rocky

Project Hail Mary is doing so well at the global box office that there’s talk of turning it into a franchise with a sequel.

The Ryan Gosling-fronted adaptation of the novel of the same name launched big at the global box office, bringing in an impressive $140 million during its opening weekend. It earned $80,583,746 domestically and $60.4 million internationally, for an impressive $140,983,746 global total. Project Hail Mary is only the third non-sequel or non-franchise movie to open above $50 million internationally in the post-COVID era (since 2020), sitting alongside Oppenheimer and F1: The Movie. On a like-for-like basis excluding China, Project Hail Mary's opening weekend was on par with Interstellar and Dune. It also secured the biggest global debut of 2026 so far, beating Scream 7’s $97 million opening weekend.

$27.6 million of the total opening weekend box office came from IMAX, showing the demand to watch the Phil Lord and Christopher Miller-directed sci-fi epic on enormous screens. Indeed, IMAX made up 20.3% of the domestic total, making it just the third film in IMAX history to index over 20% with an overall opening greater than $80 million.

Project Hail Mary is comfortably Amazon MGM Studios' highest-grossing film debut, surpassing Creed III (Amazon’s next big-budget release in theaters this year is Masters of the Universe in June). According to Variety, Project Hail Mary carried a $200 million budget, so it still has some way to go before it moves into profit during its theatrical run. But based on this start, it has a decent chance of doing so.

So, perhaps it should come as little surprise to hear that Hollywood is already thinking about Project Hail Mary 2. According to a report from The Hollywood Reporter, there are currently no official talks between author Andy Weir and Amazon MGM Studios, but “a sequel isn’t out of the question.” THR highlights the merchandise opportunity presented by the adorable alien, Rocky. Weir, who also wrote The Martian, is said to be “in the driver’s seat,” which suggests he’d have to write a Project Hail Mary follow-up for further adaptations to take place.

Project Hail Mary is comfortably Amazon MGM Studios' highest-grossing film debut, surpassing Creed III (Amazon’s next big-budget release in theaters this year is Masters of the Universe in June). According to Variety, Project Hail Mary carried a $200 million budget, so it still has some way to go before it moves into profit during its theatrical run. But based on this start, it has a decent chance of doing so.

So, perhaps it should come as little surprise to hear that Hollywood is already thinking about Project Hail Mary 2. According to a report from The Hollywood Reporter, there are currently no official talks between author Andy Weir and Amazon MGM Studios, but “a sequel isn’t out of the question.” THR highlights the merchandise opportunity presented by the adorable alien, Rocky. Weir, who also wrote The Martian, is said to be “in the driver’s seat,” which suggests he’d have to write a Project Hail Mary follow-up for further adaptations to take place.