Why Project Hail Mary's First Trailer Spoiled The Ryan Gosling Movie's Biggest Surprise

When the "Project Hail Mary" trailer dropped in the summer of 2025, fans of Andy Weir's book noticed something. Rocky, the charismatic rock-like Eridian alien who makes friends with protagonist Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling in the film) as they both try to save their home planets from the encroaching threat of astrophage, appeared in the trailer, even though his presence was ostensibly a spoiler. So why did Weir and the creative team behind the blockbuster movie — co-directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller and writer Drew Goddard — decide to put Rocky in the promotional material for the movie?

I'll let Weir explain himself, which he did when he spoke to Den of Geek in March 2026. After noting that marketing and publicity differ significantly between books and films, he made a great point. "There is just absolutely no way that we would have been able to keep the first contact aspect of this a secret," he said. "I mean, there's already been millions of people who have read the book. Nobody's going to walk into that theater not knowing about Rocky, even if we'd hidden it from the previews."

Beyond that, as Weir continued, Rocky isn't just some plot twist — he's the center of the story, really. "The meat of the story is the relationship between Ryland and Rocky, and we wanted to make sure that the potential film viewers would know that this is what this movie is about," Weir said, and he's right; even though Rocky's presence does surprise viewers in "Project Hail Mary," he's too central to the narrative to truly be defined as a "twist." Plus, I get why they wanted to show off all the work they put into Rocky in the trailer.

Thanks to practical effects and a brilliant puppet-master, Rocky comes to life in "Project Hail Mary" in a way even fans of the book couldn't have imagined. Rocky's puppeteer, James Ortiz — who created "The Skin of Their Teeth" at Lincoln Center and appeared in a 2022 revival of Stephen Sondheim's musical "Into the Woods" that starred Sara Bareilles — made sure that he bonded effectively with Ryan Gosling, as he told Variety.

As Ortiz told the outlet, he "didn't want Ryan to ever feel like he was alone in this. It would be too hard. I mean, he shouldn't have to make character decisions for a strange, faceless creature." To deal with that, the two rehearsed together without the puppet. "That would be our one chance to check in with each other, see each other's eyes, and sort of figure out the beats," Ortiz recalled. 

It's not just that Rocky was a practical marvel, but Ortiz really fleshed out his personality. "Rocky is super intelligent and has a mind like a computer — you never have to say anything twice to him," Ortiz mused. "But his soul, to me, always felt like that of a little brother. There's a little bit of this anxious, 14-year-old boy who really wants to be invited to the party."

It got to the point, according to the movie's VFX production supervisor Paul Lambert in The New York Times, that they could hardly tell which effect was which. "Toward the end of the movie, like when we were watching sequences, all of us said the same thing, 'I can't remember if this is puppet or CG,'" he revealed. "It was just a testament to the two worlds coming together."

In that original Den of Geek interview, Andy Weir made an important point about Rocky and his importance to the entire story of "Project Hail Mary." As he put it: 

"So we knew that the story was going to live and die on the representation of Rocky. We had to get Rocky right. And [Phil] Lord and [Christopher] Miller have a long and extensive history of animation, so they know how to take seemingly inanimate objects and make them awesome, and make you empathize with them and make you love them. They were the right team for this job. I can't imagine it being done by anyone else."

Anyone who's seen "Project Hail Mary" can quite confidently say that Lord and Miller succeeded at this mission. This deeply emotional and thought-provoking movie is literally a two-hander between Ryan Gosling and a puppet, and the fact that the audience sheds tears over Rocky by the end of the movie is truly a testament to how well James Ortiz play the role ... and how well he was able to connect with Gosling on a human level throughout the process. (It's also strangely satisfying to know, as a viewer, that Gosling wasn't just acting against a tennis ball on a stick or whatever.)

"Project Hail Mary" might not work with a less charismatic actor at its core — Gosling is truly astounding — but it definitely wouldn't work if Rocky wasn't tactile, lovable, and on set with Gosling while the Academy Award nominee played Ryland Grace. The film is in theaters now, and if you want to find yourself crying over a rock without eyes, you should go and see it now.