The Big Picture · Discussion · Review · Interview
March 20, 2026/ 105 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins
Sean and Amanda open on the low Oscar ratings and a run of news, review Lord & Miller's 'Project Hail Mary,' then Sean talks to the directors about building the thing by hand.
22 films across 3 segments.
AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.
The newsOscar ratings, a Spider-Man trailer, and Netflix's theatrical flirtation
The new trailer, which Amanda watched during a manicure. Destin Daniel Cretton takes over from Jon Watts; Jon Bernthal's Punisher, Michael Mando's Scorpion, a returning Hulk, and a hidden Sadie Sink (Sean's guess: Jean Grey). Both thought it looked small and un-special.
The nearly-$2B comparison point; the mind-wipe that this movie is picking up from.
Sean rewatched it with his daughter and calls it the first not-special Star Wars movie. Later tied back to Lord & Miller, who shot chunks of it before Lucasfilm replaced them with Ron Howard.
Context for Kirsten Dunst joining the sequel, which she publicly campaigned for, in her words, to make 'a pile of cash.'
Cited as a check-cashing role: Rebecca Ferguson playing an AI, in the running-bit about 'would you make money off an AI friend named Money.'
Reference point for the 'comedian dating an AI chatbot and bringing her places' story.
Also invoked in the AI-friend bit: Vincent Cassel and the chatbot who's secretly Guy Pearce.
The Netflix / Tarantino-written, Fincher-directed feature whose August date was scrubbed from a Deadline report. Sean speculates Sony could put it in theaters with Netflix.
The prior Cliff Booth movie, a Sony-distributed summer release: Sean's evidence the sequel plays as summer.
Apple's model of pairing with a legacy studio (Paramount) for a theatrical release; source of the two-year single-still rollout Sean expects for Scorsese's next.
Apple's last-summer theatrical, distributed with Warner Bros.
The Sony Pictures Animation hit, cited to argue Netflix and Sony already have a like-meets-like relationship.
One of the Netflix films they keep saying should get a real theatrical run.
The other Netflix property they think is 'bizarre' not to open in theaters at scale.
Emerald Fennell passed on Netflix to make it at Warner Bros, evidence filmmakers want theatrical.
Ryan Coogler's Warner Bros. deal (print control, a real theatrical commitment) as the counter-model; also a lingering Oscar competitor that had been out almost a year by the ceremony.
Dropped as a byword for dreaming big, apropos of Sean's Oscars-attendance fantasies.
First surfaces here (the Loews helicopter pad) before Chris Miller names it his last-great-thing in the interview.
‘Project Hail Mary’
Lord & Miller's first directing job in a decade, from Drew Goddard's script of Andy Weir's novel (the same Weir/Goddard pairing as 'The Martian'). Ryan Gosling (who produced) as Ryland Grace, a middle-school science teacher with a PhD, waking with amnesia on a last-chance mission against Astrophage dimming the sun; Sandra Hüller as Ava Stratton. Both loved it, the first 90 minutes 'truly magical,' and Amanda floats it as better than 'The Martian.' The whole thing feels built by hand: sets on stilts, a real puppet Rocky (Neal Scanlan's creature, James Ortiz and the 'Rocketeers' puppeteering), Greg Fraser's imperfectionist camera, Daniel Pemberton's percussive-then-choral score. Amanda's alien since E.T. The knock: it's too long and ends five different times, a baggy last 15 to 25 minutes.
Phil Lord and Chris Miller on ‘Project Hail Mary’
Ryan Gosling and Amy Pascal sent them Weir's manuscript pre-publication; producer Adithya Sood (who'd found 'The Martian' as an e-book) told them it was their next movie. On making Rocky a real five-puppeteer creature so Gosling had a scene partner, building the ship twice (vertical then horizontal for the spin-gravity flip), a green-screen-free shoot, the 'Greg vibes pass,' the infrared-Astrophage chicken-wire rig, and 11 test screenings. Two Oscar-winning HODs (Fraser, Paul Lambert) called it the most complex film they'd made: 'and we made two Dunes.'
Chris Miller's last-great-thing: Bart Layton's heist picture, seen at the CityWalk IMAX. 'LA for LA,' one-last-job crime cinema that turns the 101 freeway into poetry.
Phil Lord's last-great-thing: an Oscar-nominated animated short, a painting-and-repainting story about a swimmer, which he watched with his kids and praised on technique.
Also mentioned raised along the way
Project Hail Mary's touchstones E.T. the Extra-TerrestrialClose Encounters of the Third KindInterstellar2001: A Space OdysseyFirst ManNorth by NorthwestGravityArrivalThe MartianThe Day the Earth Stood StillMetropolisApollo 13Star WarsMad Max: Fury RoadDuneSpider-Man: Into the Spider-VerseRififiThiefLittle Shop of HorrorsSouth Park: Bigger, Longer & UncutCloudy with a Chance of Meatballs21 Jump Street22 Jump StreetThe Nice GuysThe Lego Movie
The Oscar-race field Top Gun: MaverickEverything Everywhere All at OnceDistrict 9AvatarDune: Part ThreeThe Hunger Games
Also in the news NapoleonLast ChristmasThe OdysseyEvil Dead BurnToy Story 5Wuthering HeightsThe Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV The PunisherDaredevilBetter Call SaulStranger ThingsGame of ThronesThe Real HousewivesWatch What CrappensThe Rewatchables
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