Project Hail Mary is one of the biggest films of 2026 and, more than that, one of the biggest sci-fi movies in years with the adaptation of Andy Weir’s bestselling novel easily winning over fans both with its story and the fan-favorite character, Rocky. The film’s success has spurred plenty of discussion about a sequel to the blockbuster film and now, it sounds like producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller are definitely headed back to sci-fi—just not necessarily back to the Hail Mary.
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According to The Hollywood Reporter, Lord and Miller are set to produce I Promise We’re Cool for Universal Pictures. The film, which is set to be written by The Sex Lives of College Girls actor Charlie Hall and directed by Max Tzannes, is described as a high concept high school comedy with a sci-fi twist. No other details have been released about the project, though given that Lord and Miller previously wrote and directed 21 Jump Street, combined with their Project Hail Mary experience, I Promise We’re Cool sounds like a logical next film.
Lord and Miller’s Upcoming Project Taps Into Both the Popularity of Sci-Fi and Next Generation Talent
What is particularly interesting about the announcement of I Promise We’re Cool is the people who are involved beyond Lord and Miller. Hall, best known for appearances in The Sex Lives of College Girls and Monster: The Ed Gein Story, is the son of Julia Louis-Drefys. The upcoming film would make his first major writing credit. He’s also currently developing a scripted comedy for Hulu, C-League. The film’s director is also a relative newcomer with Tzannes, part of the filmmaking collective Dirty Shot Clean, is best known for his shorts. I Promise We’re Cool wouldn’t be his first feature film experience, but it certainly seems poised to be a larger, higher profile project than what we’ve previously seen from him.
Tapping into these two younger talents is a very of-the-moment move in terms of Hollywood entertainment. We’ve recently started to see the rise of a new generation of filmmakers on the horror side of things. Films like Backrooms and Obsession have been performing very well at the box office and both come from two filmmakers under the age of 30 who honed their craft on YouTube. While I Promise We’re Cool is described as sci-fi rather than horror, this project could end up being an expansion of that younger talent wave into another, wildly popular genre and could, in theory, mark a shift in Hollywood and the stories it tells.
For now, additional details about I Promise We’re Cool have not yet been released.
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