It’s turning into quite the month for Ryan Gosling. The actor is the star of Project Hail Mary, which has already received rave reviews and masterpiece hype ahead of its release on March 20th, and the final stages of marketing are now underway. That, rather naturally, includes leaning on Gosling’s own persona and heavy amounts of charm and charisma, but also, more surprisingly, going back into the actor’s filmography, fixing a mistake that’s bothered him for the past decade.
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As part of the promo for Project Hail Mary, a new poster was released that parodies La La Land, the Best Picture nominee that Gosling starred in alongside Emma Stone. Recreating the musical’s iconic poster, which features the pair dancing in L.A., Stone’s Mia has now been replaced by Rocky, the alien from Hail Mary, with whom Gosling’s Ryland Grace will strike up an unlikely but wonderful friendship. And one thing you didn’t expect them to do together was dance, but that’s what we get in the poster, via the movie’s official account on X:
What’s particularly notable about the poster, apart from how delightful it is, is that it fixes Gosling’s “La La Hand” from the original movie. The positioning of it is something the actor himself has long been bothered by, as he admits he should’ve just held it straight, whereas in the movie, and thus the poster, he had it slanted down, thinking it’d be cooler. In 2024, he told WSJ Magazine that it “haunts” him. In a video, again shared on the Project Hail Mary X account, we get to see the process of the actor finally putting things right:
In the clip, he calls it his “Hail Mary” attempt to fix his “La La Hand,” asking “how’s my hand?” when in position and leading to cheers when he actually gets it right.
Project Hail Mary Is Set To Be One Of Ryan Gosling’s Best Movies To Date
The La La Land-inspired poster continues what has been a stellar marketing campaign for the movie thus far. While there were some complaints that Project Hail Mary revealed Rocky’s presence early on, it has made it very clear that their relationship is (rightly) at the very heart of the story. It’s also done a wonderful job of striking the right tone, varying between the humor of the character and the cataclysmic severity of the situation: in the film, for those unfamiliar, Gosling is tasked with an almost impossible mission, a “Hail Mary,” to save Earth because of a mysterious organism causing the sun to die.
At the time of writing, the movie has 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the highest of Gosling’s career, just ahead of Drive (93%) and then La La Land (91%). In his own review, ComicBook‘s Spencer Perry called Project Hail Mary the “first science-fiction masterpiece of 2026.” On Gosling’s performance more specifically, he referred to it as Oscar-worthy, and that it proves Gosling is “one of our most compelling performers, and an actor whose range always has new depths.”
Whether Project Hail Mary could be the movie to land Gosling an Oscar remains to be seen, given next year already looks stacked (with the likes of Tom Cruise, Matt Damon, and Timothée Chalamet expected to be in contention). But what already seems clear is that this is among his very best movies, something La La Land also holds a fair claim to. The actor is going from the city of stars out into a universe full of them, but whether it’s a musical or Sci-Fi, he keeps on shining, and now he’s even getting his hand in the right position as well.
Project Hail Mary hits theaters on March 20th, 2026.
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Courtesy of Bones Film
