No, ‘Spaceman’ Isn’t Based on ‘Project Hail Mary,’ but We See the Comparison

"The only similarities seem to be an intelligent spider and a guy alone on a spaceship," a Redditor stated about 'Spaceman' and 'Project Hail Mary.'

Mar. 4 2024, Published 2:20 p.m. ET

Seeing two movies with just about identical plot twists isn’t precisely an extraordinary incidence. Consider Friends With Benefits and No Strings Attached, or Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsmen. Plenty of films and novels additionally percentage an identical plots. But after the discharge of Spaceman in March 2024, starring Adam Sandler and Carey Mulligan, other folks began speculating the movie isn’t an unique, however as a substitute, is based on Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary, revealed in May 2021.

Sure, the movie and novel both center around a unmarried persona floating around in space leading crucial venture, to not point out they both characteristic a giant spider-like alien, but is one copying the other? Here’s what we know.

‘Spaceman’ and ‘Project Hail Mary’ both characteristic spiders and lonely astronauts, but one is not a by-product of the other.

Spaceman is based on the radical Spaceman of Bohemia, written through Jaroslav Kalfař, and revealed in March 2017. Jaroslav wrote an early draft of the book whilst attending New York University the place he studied writing and literature. Project Hail Mary, on the opposite hand, was once revealed in May 2021. Because Spaceman of Bohemia was once released years prior to Project Hail Mary was revealed, it may possibly’t be based on Andy’s book.

Now that we’ve cleared the air on that, let’s believe why individuals are connecting the two. Both Spaceman and Project Hail Mary feature lonely astronauts, floating about in area with a very important project to complete. In Spaceman, while Commander Jakub Procházka (Adam Sandler) is exploring the Chopra Cloud, he’s met with a soft-spoken fuzzy spider-like alien — Hanuš, who becomes his travel spouse and enlightener.

Similarly, Project Hail Mary follows Ryland Grace, a dissatisfied biologist, who is despatched to area to study Astrophage. He too is available in touch with an enormous spider — Rocky, who becomes a faithful good friend. The primary distinction between the two, alternatively, is Spaceman is “more concerning the astronaut’s private lifestyles than anything, whilst PHM [Project Hail Mary] is exhausting sci-fi about an existential risk to all existence on Earth,” Andy clarified in a January 2024 Facebook post.

So, is ‘Project Hail Mary’ copying ‘Spaceman of Bohemia’?

According to Project Hail Mary writer Andy Weir, no. Before Spaceman was once launched on Netflix on March 1, 2024, Andy wrote on Facebook, “I didn’t scouse borrow concepts from ‘Spaceman of Bohemia,’ I hadn’t read it or ever heard of it after I wrote ‘PHM.’ And if folks need to talk about intelligent spiderlike aliens as a commonality, then we'd want to speak about ‘Children of Time’ by way of Adrian Tchaikovsky, which got here out ahead of both of the opposite two books.”

Andy says that even if the 2 endure “superficial similarities,” the reality is, “the tales are utterly different.” And Reddit users who've watched both Spaceman and read Andy’s ebook seem to agree. One particular person wrote, “There are some similarities but it surely’s coming at it from a completely other angle.” Another Redditor commented, “The best similarities seem to be an intelligent spider and a guy by myself on a spaceship.”

Spaceman is now streaming on Netflix.

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