Happy Sad Confused Phil Lord & Chris Miller (PROJECT HAIL MARY), Vol. III
Mar 23, 2026
Chris Miller, filmmaker behind Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Spider-Verse co-director. Phil Lord, director/producer of The Lego Movie and Spider-Verse co-creator. They talk about Project Hail Mary’s reception, technical hurdles like zero-G and VFX, Ryan Gosling’s physical work, creating Rocky with puppetry, music choices, and the future of Spider-Verse.
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Showing Inner Scientific Thought Cinematically
- Project Hail Mary's surprising sneaky challenge was communicating Grace's internal scientific thinking without voiceover narration.
- Lord and Miller solved it by staging physical experiments, building tangible rigs, and designing cinematic ways to show problem-solving on screen.
Stealing Power For The Rotating Sun Tunnel
- The team discovered an unexpected electrical challenge when building a rotating sun tunnel that required enormous power.
- They ran a cable bridge across the street to steal power from another stage to light the translucent rotating tunnel for those shots.
Use Tough Early Screenings To Force Cuts
- Use trusted filmmaker peers to give honest early notes and subject long cuts to tough audiences.
- Lord and Miller screened a 3h45m cut to filmmaker friends which forced them to aggressively trim to a tighter runtime.