Project Hail Mary's 5 Deleted Scenes, Ranked By How Much The Movie Needed Them

Published Oct 12, 2026, 3:20 PM EDT Once head of Screen Rant's Star Wars coverage and co-lead of Superheroes, Tom Bacon now works with the movies and books teams. He's a lifelong fan of the fantasy and sci-fi genres, and loves franchises such as Doctor Who and Marvel. You can find him on Twitter @TomABacon, on LinkedIn @tabacon, or on Muckrack under tombacon. Tom has a wide range of interests, and he continues to serve his university as a volunteer chaplain. He's heavily involved with his local church, and anyone who checks him out on Twitter will swiftly learn he's into British politics too. Based on a best-selling novel by Andy Weir, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller's Project Hail Mary is a science-fiction classic. I've always loved Phil Lord and Christopher Miller's work; Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is easily one of the best superhero movies ever made, and it was disappointing to see their Star Wars project fall through. Project Hail Mary is perhaps the closest we'll ever get to seeing their vision for Star Wars, a blend of character-rich humor and surprisingly enjoyable pseudo-science. The home release of Project Hail Mary includes five deleted scenes. They're all delightful to watch, but — unusually for this kind of film — it's actually easy to see why most of them were cut. In every case, they demonstrate Lord and Miller's somewhat over-the-top sense of humor, and there are a couple of occasions where they'd actually have detracted from tension in key scenes. Still, there's one that feels like a glaring omission; it could have been trimmed, but it's a major plot twist that should have still been there. 5 Day 1 Food Paste Project Hail Mary opens with a delightful scene in which Grace wakes up on a spaceship — not even able to remember why he's in space. In this opening scene, he fights his way out of medical treatment only to discover the other two crew-members died during the journey to Tau Ceti. But "Day 1 Food Paste" is an extension of this scene, with Grace fed a food paste by the medical arm. He gets on a lot on his beard, eats some, and smears the rest on the medical arm in retaliation. It's an entertaining scene, but I can see why this one was cut. The problem is that it overplays the humor ahead of the dramatic reveal the crew of the Hail Mary died in transit; the transition from laugh-out-loud comedy to shock is just a little too much. Lord and Miller made a smart call by pruning this, and the cut significantly improves the narrative flow of Project Hail Mary's opening. 4 You Sleep, I Watch By the end of Project Hail Mary, audiences worldwide had fallen in love with the wonderful dynamic between Grace and Rocky; that alone explains the near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score. Surprisingly, only two deleted scenes actually come from the "Grace and Rocky" part of the film, suggesting Lord and Miller kept their trademark sense of humor under control. "You Sleep, I Watch" is an extended scene in which Rocky tries to find a way to watch over Grace without keeping him awake. It's an entertaining scene, and I found myself laughing out loud. The problem, though, is that this was already a repeated gag in the movie; I can't see a way to keep it without cutting at least one of the earliest scenes, and they're better. This one outstays its welcome ever so slightly, dragging the humor out, and it would have damaged the pacing. 3 I Think I'm Handling Things Pretty Awesome © Amazon MGM Studios /Courtesy Everett Collection This next scene is another enjoyable one, an extended montage of shots where Grace essentially has a nervous breakdown in space. This is early on in movie, with Grace still unable to remember why he's on the ship or what he's supposed to do. Without a clue, he settles down to playing darts with felt pens and a white-board, and eventually collapses in tears in the ship's recreation room. It's somehow both hilarious and heartbreaking at the same time, really selling the character's isolation. Unlike the previous two scenes, I can see a case for this one; it's emotional enough to draw viewers into Grace's plight. The core problem, though, is that it just isn't necessary. Project Hail Mary's existing scenes all do that job perfectly well. In fact, there would have been a risk of overdoing it. 2 How To Put On A Spacesuit The fourth deleted scene shows Grace struggling to figure out how to put on a spacesuit. The instructions are in Russian — an element kept in the final cut — and so he resorts to a video walkthrough he plays on his laptop. Naturally, it's not quite so easy doing it for the first time in zero-gravity, and he has real problems when his glasses have fallen off while he put the helmet on. Project Hail Mary keeps some elements of this deleted scene, but cuts the broader narrative. Again, I think that's a smart choice; this is straight after Rocky's spaceship has arrived, and Grace needs to get the spacesuit on so he can catch the "message on a bottle." The audience isn't really interested in the humor right now; there's a mystery to be solved, and too much comedy would have neutralized the sense of drama. This, too, would have added something; but not quite enough to justify being in the movie. 1 Maybe We're Cousins The final Project Hail Mary deleted scene is shortly after Rocky and Grace have figured out a predator on Tau Ceti-E (or "Adrian") is killing the astrophage. In this extended scene, Grace notes that this couldn't happen by accident; the astrophage must be a part of a stable ecosystem here, likely meaning this was where it evolved. Amusingly, Rocky goes one step further and suggests all life began on Adrian, leading to Grace suggesting "maybe we're cousins." It certainly blows Rocky's mind. This is the one deleted scene that I think should have been kept (although, in my view, it should still have been trimmed down a little). Grace's original theory is a sensible one, explaining why Tau Ceti wasn't affected by the astrophage (and why every other star-system the astrophage invaded was). The problem, though, is that the "cousins" gag stretches the deleted scene out a little too far, with the humor effectively killing off the major reveal. In my view, a trimmed — or perhaps edited — version of this scene should have made it through to Project Hail Mary's final cut, adding a last bit of pseudoscience to the story. Release Date March 15, 2026 Runtime 157 minutes Director Christopher Miller, Phil Lord Cast James Ortiz Rocky (voice) Writers Drew Goddard, Andy Weir Producers Aditya Sood, Amy Pascal, Andy Weir, Christopher Miller, Phil Lord, Rachel O'Connor, Ryan Gosling