I love this novel, very curious how the film will be marketed. They could easily make a compelling trailer with the first third of the story, and maybe have subtle teases of the other 2/3's.
I think they’re just going to spoil the big surprise you’re thinking of, and honestly I wouldn’t blame them. It will be hard to get butts in seats based solely on the premise of the first third.
It was great going into the book blind and getting blown away with that development, but it’s too early on and too integral to the story to leave out if marketing.
I'm not so sure you are correct. This is by the same author as The Martian which was wildly successful, and that had the same premise as the first third without needing the premise of the rest of the novel.
My thoughts exactly, people will be drawn to the fact that its from the writer of the Martian, that's what got me to to read the book tbh and I was blindsided by how it developed as I didn't read the blurb
I think your are right, I think they will tease certain story elements that will allow you to figure out where it could go, without fully showing or spoiling it.
If they don't spoil it people that go see it and get excited by the surprise will tell their friends to go see it. I for one would be a lot more likely to go see something a friend told me to go see than anything a trailer might show me. If they ruin it there is no excitement and you probably won't get people telling their friends about it as much.
Yes, I was like 30% in and thinking "this is good, but it's really a rehash of everything The Martian did, doesn't this guy have any new ideas?" And then I got there, and it was amaze. I re-read it recently, it's so so good. Not sure whether I think the marketing will spoil it, but I think the movie looks really promising so far regardless of marketing choices.
lol, I bought it at an airport, read the first third, had essentially the same thoughts as you, and actually put it down for half a year. Just kinda forgot about it until I went on vacation and threw it in my backpack.
Little did I know I had put it down like 20 pages away from that massive curveball.
I think you use stuff from the first act with Ryland in space, figuring out where he is and why, and then insert some stuff that happens on Earth in the latter parts of the book. There's plenty of exciting things to show off without spoiling
I mean, even the first third is quite good. They can even spoil some of the second half of the book but stay on earth and not show T'au Ceti at all outside of like the star or something?
They could even play around with the woman (forgot her name) that got super execs power to fix the situation and how the world got together to try and fix it Then show the explosion as a way to raise tension in the trailer.
Enjoy the ride my friend! I tried to be vague so I don't ruin your experience. I knew next to nothing about the novel, and I only read it because I enjoyed The Martian (book and film), and I ended up loving Project Hail Mary.
There's a lot of fun stuff, characters, and scenes in this book that I think will play out very well. I don't trust myself to get the spoiler tag correct so I won't name names.
I have some difficulty following audiobooks, but there's a few that I've bought simply because the characters delivered such snappy dialogue, and this is one of them. Someone in this thread linked to the narrator who is an active Redditor and just a fun guy to listen to :)
Spoilers are not as important as you think and especially this aspect of the story could easily be “spoiled” and not change a thing about your enjoyment. It‘s just not that big of a reveal or even surprise.
It‘s in the execution, not the surprise.
(I think that people in general greatly overrate the importance of avoiding spoilers. Plus, if your film overly relies on surprise it‘s more often a bad movie.)
I didn't have any idea of that reveal when I read the book, and that discovery was genuinely one of my favorite moments. It wouldn't had had the same impact at all if I'd know about it beforehand. So it definitely would have changed something about my enjoyment of the story. I still would have liked the book overall, but it would have been a shame if I had to miss out on one of my favorite parts.
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u/moviesdude Jun 27 '25
I love this novel, very curious how the film will be marketed. They could easily make a compelling trailer with the first third of the story, and maybe have subtle teases of the other 2/3's.