While it’s pretty much a fact of life that the book will always be better than the movie, the adaptation of Project Hail Mary really revived the book reader/movie fan in me. Even though, of course, there are quite a few key differences between the source material and the film one can note, in my opinion it’s one of those rare book-to-screen adaptations where I felt enriched by seeing the story in a new medium, and eager to go back to Andy Weir’s novel at the same time. With that in mind, I want to talk about another bestselling book about space that I’m absolutely ready to see the movie for now.
Project Hail Mary Reminded Me Of Another Space Movie Based On A Book I Want To See
Taylor Jenkins Reid, whose book Daisy Jones and the Six became a miniseries in 2023, is one of my favorite authors of late. When her latest novel, Atmosphere, came out last year, I picked it up as soon as I could, and it ended up being one of the best books of 2025. It’s not a science fiction book like Project Hail Mary is, but rather a historical fiction novel about a woman astronaut going through NASA’s Space Shuttle program in the 1980s.
The book came out of Reid’s extensive research into the space program, which did in fact have more inclusion of women and people of color starting in the 80s. The book begins by taking the audience right to the middle of a crisis during a space mission, before going back and telling the story of Joan Goodwin, an astronomer who trains to be an astronaut for NASA throughout the novel.
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During the book, she falls for one of the other women in the program, Vanessa Ford, and there’s an emotional plotline revolving around Joan and her niece Frances. Back in May 2025, Variety reported that a movie adaptation is in the works with Captain Marvel directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck and Laika’s new live-action division producing it.
I Hope Its Success Propels The Atmosphere Movie Into Production
While Project Hail Mary is very much a sci-fi movie with an emphasis on the “sci,” Atmosphere feels like a space movie more in the vein of Apollo 13 that has a lot of emphasis on the interpersonal relationships between the people in NASA’s space program and the emotions involved with putting your life on the line to leave one’s planet to pursue scientific knowledge. It’d be one of the rare movies focused on a woman astronaut and among upcoming LGBTQ+ movies, but I truly think it’s a story that could be accessible for everyone.
While Atmosphere is currently in the works with Laika, I hope how well Project Hail Mary is doing commercially only helps propel this book-to-screen adaptation to production. So often, projects like this fall through, especially if there are creative differences between the author and the production. Project Hail Mary reminds me that a great marriage between being true to a book and making changes to work for a different medium can exist, and I am hungry for another human story about the discovery of our natural tendency as humans to look to the stars for answers.
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