It’s been a busy year for the dynamic duoPhil LordandChris Miller. Not only has the pair been hard at work behind the script for the highly-anticipatedSpider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, but they’ve also finally been given the chance to reboot the fan-favorite adult animated series,Clone High. Now that the latter is back tostaggering successand the former willswing into theaterson June 2, you might be wondering what the creative team has in store for us next.
Sitting down with Collider’s ownSteve Weintraub, Lord and Miller were asked that very important question, and they gave us a pretty solid answer as to what we can expect from them beyond the multiverse. While many of their recent projects, includingAcross the Spider-VerseandThe Lego Movie 2: The Second Parthave seen them putting pen to paper and cranking out heartfelt and entertaining scripts, they revealed that their return to directing is on the horizon.
Sharing his love for the pair’s filmmaking credits, which in the past have included the likes ofCloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,21 Jump Street, andThe Lego Movie, Weintraub asked if their vision would be behind anything else in the near future. Jumping right to it, Lord said that while they were “Trying not to commit ourselves to anything,” continuing on to say they were “Very excited about a bunch of our future projects.” While anyone could’ve stopped there and just tossed us a broad and undetailed idea of what’s to come, Lord threw a title out as well:Project Hail Mary. “We’re particularly excited aboutProject Hail Mary,” Lord says, adding that they’ll of course be waiting until the writers come out on top of the strike before they get the ball rolling.
Searching for further confirmation, Weintraub asked if the 2021 sci-fi novel byAndy Weirwould be theirnext big screen adaptationto which Lord passed the ball to Miller, noting, “He’s more responsible than I am.” Leaning into his teammate’s previous statements, Miller said, “Yeah, obviously there’s a lot to figure out, but it’s looking that way.
What isProject Hail Mary?
In Weir’s book, the story centers around a junior high school teacher named Ryland Grace who wakes up from a coma. Unsure of his surroundings due to a case of amnesia, he slowly begins to piece his past together, recalling that he was enlisted as an astronaut and sent to a solar system 12 light-years from our own to prevent the end of humanity. Aswe reported back in 2020, Lord and Miller had hiredDrew Goddardto help them pen the film’s script for the film which was picked up by MGM. At the time,Ryan Goslingwasattached in the leading rolebut now that it’s been three years since the last whispers, who knows how things may shake out.
What we do know is that we now have another Lord and Miller-helmed title to look forward to with the team preparing to launch into space withProject Hail Mary.
