Lord and Miller Finally Get to Make a Space Movie

Phil Lord and Chris Miller's Hollywood credits include the Oscar-winning Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse, the Jump Street movies, and roughly half of a Star Wars movie about a young Han Solo. But rather than let the final frontier go unexplored, the filmmaking duo are headed back to space for a new film starring Ryan Gosling. According to Variety, Lord and Miller have been brought on by MGM to direct and produce the film adaptation of a space thriller novel by The Martian author Andy Weir. Weir's upcoming book is set for publication in Spring 2021 by Random House, but it doesn't have a title at the moment, so it's being referred to as "Project Hail Mary." A fitting placeholder title for a story about an astronaut aboard a space ship on a desperate mission to save the planet. Lord and Miller were fired from Solo: A Star Wars Story in the middle of production due to creative differences. According to reports, Lord and Miller have a more loose and improvisational style when it comes to movie-making, but that didn't sit well with Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan, who like to go strictly by the script, so they were taken off the project and replaced with director Ron Howard. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=star-wars-and-its-weird-recent-history-of-director-drop-outs&captions=true"] The 2015 film adaptation of The Martian by director Ridley Scott starring Matt Damon earned plenty of commercial success and critical praise, emphasized by its seven Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor in a Leading Role. So there's little wonder why top talent are already lining up to make a movie based on Weir's next project. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/05/12/boba-fett-lives-how-the-bounty-hunter-is-coming-back-to-the-mandalorian"] [poilib element="accentDivider"] Joshua is Senior Features Editor at IGN. If Pokemon, Green Lantern, or Game of Thrones are frequently used words in your vocabulary, you’ll want to follow him on Twitter @JoshuaYehl and IGN.