Why Project Hail Mary’s Original Runtime Was Over Double The Final Cut

Project Hail Mary was originally much longer, but here’s why the smash-hit sci-fi film was trimmed down. Ryan Gosling’s latest vehicle is already blossoming into a bona fide hit around the globe, passing the $100 million mark after only a few days in theaters. The final cut is a whopping 156 minutes, but earlier cuts were somehow even longer.

Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have been quite open about the process of making the Andy Weir adaptation, including spilling some interesting information about the film’s first few cuts. Project Hail Mary does an excellent job of preserving its source material, but necessary cuts always come into play in the world of cinema.

Project Hail Mary’s Original Cut Was Almost 4 Hours Long

While appearing on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, directors Lord and Miller spoke about early cuts of Project Hail Mary. Miller mentioned assembly cuts that were over four hours before settling on the first screened cut, which topped out at three hours and 45 minutes in length. That’s more than an hour longer than the final cut that hit theaters.

They didn’t offer much insight into what was trimmed and why, but it isn’t unusual for early cuts to be very long. Assembly cuts are usually all the scenes that were shot thrown together in a rough timeline, and aren’t meant to be seen by anyone but the behind-the-scenes crew. Nevertheless, the initial rough cut was quite long.

Why The Final Cut Of Project Hail Mary Is So Much Shorter

Project Hail Mary is an excellent sci-fi flick, and it would be interesting to see the footage that was cut from the film. However, a 225-minute running time would never fly from a mainstream studio release. Amazon MGM has a big hit on their hands, and that would have been jeopardized had they released such an indulgent film into theaters.

Movies have gotten longer in recent years, and Project Hail Mary‘s length is pretty standard for big-budget releases. Anything longer would have been arduous for the average moviegoer and killed the general flow of the story. It’s an adaptation of a book, but few page-to-screen translations keep every little detail from the original work.

Project Hail Mary has a quick pace and a nice tone, and it does an excellent job of synthesizing Weir’s novel into its 150 minutes. In their interview, Lord and Miller discussed how some moments weren’t landing with test audiences, and those were the ones that were likely cut immediately.

The maxim “kill your darlings” is thrown around a lot in the film industry, and that’s especially true in the editing room. Lord and Miller clearly made the right choice by cutting Project Hail Mary down to a respectable length. In some cases, too much of a good thing can actually hold a film back from being a classic.

Source: Happy Sad Confused, Box Office Mojo