Ryan Gosling’s Record-Breaking Sci-Fi Masterpiece Is Blasting Off on Streaming

Project Hail Mary has been an astronomical success that refuses to come back down to earth. Having already delivered one of 2026’s biggest box office success stories, the acclaimed sci-fi epic has chartered a course onto streaming and become an instant No. 1 on Prime Video worldwide within a day of its arrival. It’s the latest triumph in a run that has quietly confirmed Ryan Gosling as one of the safest bets in all of Hollywood right now.

The film landed on Prime Video on July 3 and wasted no time taking over the charts, hitting the top spot both domestically and globally in under 24 hours and knocking Hugh Jackman’s The Sheep Detectives into a No.2 slot. The thing with Project Hail Mary is that is was not rushed out to streaming like many other movies of the last several years. The film enjoyed an extended box office run before eventually heading to VOD services in May. Shortly after that the film was added to Amazon’s MGM+ service before arriving this month on Prime Video after an increasingly rare 90-day cinema window.

Project Hail Mary grossed a staggering $683.5 million worldwide, comfortably becoming the highest-grossing film in Amazon MGM Studios’ history. It launched with an $80.5 million domestic opening — the studio’s biggest debut ever, beating the previous record set by Creed III — before taking its time to build on hugely positive reviews and word of mouth to overtake the lifetime gross of author Andy Weir‘s other big-screen adaptation, The Martian, and even Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer domestically. On a reported $200 million budget, it turned a healthy profit and finished as the third-highest-grossing film of the year so far, behind only The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and Michael.

If there is any doubt about why Project Hail Mary became one of the success stories of the year for sci-fi, the quality of the team behind it makes that very easy to see. Directed by Spider-Verse duo Phil Lord and Christopher Miller from a script by Drew Goddard, the film pairs an amnesiac science teacher (Gosling) with a lovable alien named Rocky on an almost impossible mission to save the sun. Critics and audiences immediately fell in love with the story, handing the film a near-perfect 94% critics’ score and 95% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with one reviewer memorably noting that Gosling “proves he can have chemistry with a rock.”

Ryan Gosling Can Do Nothing Wrong Right Now

For Gosling, it is just another success to add to a growing list of notable credits he has been accumulating recently. Between his Oscar-nominated turn as Ken in Barbie, the stunt-loving fun of The Fall Guy and Project Hail Mary, he has spent the past few years doing very little wrong, and putting himself in the position of being Hollywood’s go-to guy for charismatic leading men that audiences actually want to pack out cinemas to see.

Which is why the reaction to Project Hail Mary is good news for Gosling’s next big space adventure in Star Wars: Starfighter, a standalone Star Wars film from Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy. Featuring all-new characters and set roughly five years after The Rise of Skywalker, there is a lot riding on the movie to bring the franchise back to theaters with a strong run after the lackluster response to The Mandalorian & Grogu this year. Gosling’s popularity combined with the crowd-pleasing work of Levy could end up being exactly what the franchise needs, and throwing in a clean slate for those who are not completely up-to-date with previous entries in the franchise seems like the most sensible decision all round. That movie hits cinemas next summer.

For now, Project Hail Mary is maintaining a steady orbit at the top of the tree for 2026 sci-fi movies, where it could hold its No.1 position for a while before being overtaken. For those who have yet to witness the awesome spectacle and heartfelt drama of the film, Project Hail Mary can be streamed now on Prime Video.

(featured image: Amazon MGM Studios)

Have a tip we should know? [email protected]