Project Hail Mary filmmakers Phil Lord and Chris Miller have revealed how they managed to convince the LEGO Group to take the plunge on a tie-in set.
11389 Project Hail Mary hits shelves on Sunday and marks an atypical addition to the LEGO Icons line-up. Where the theme traditionally tackles established franchises like Pirates of the Caribbean, The Lord of the Rings and even Stranger Things, this is a set based on a standalone film that isn’t even out yet. We’re very much in uncharted waters… so it might not surprise you to learn that it wasn’t actually the LEGO Group’s idea.
“They don’t normally do things that are not based on already successful franchises,” Miller told io9. “Like a one-off movie like this, that’s its own thing. But we told them to trust us. And we said, ‘Come to the set and see what it is and how special it is.’”
In their corner already was, of course, Lord and Miller’s existing LEGO pedigree: they helmed The LEGO Movie and produced The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part. And they told io9 that their relationship with the LEGO Group ‘helped a lot’ in driving 11389 Project Hail Mary forward, as the company finally accepted one of ‘a million invitations’ to visit the set of the movie in London.
“Then we secretly cut a whole 10-minute piece to show them, and it blew them away,” Lord said. “They understood how special the movie was and how LEGO fans were going to respond to it.”
“And they found a way to make a very cool set,” Miller added.
11389 Project Hail Mary combines its 830 pieces into a microscale version of the movie’s eponymous spacecraft, at the core of which is a mechanism that recreates its centrifugal gravity system. Lord and Miller’s involvement in the product didn’t begin and end with the pitch to make it happen, though.
“We had the opportunity and the pleasure to talk to them on a couple of occasions on online meetings,” said the set’s designer Nathan Heigert. “I was a fan of theirs from going way back to their show, Clone High, so if you ask me, they can do no wrong. It was really nice to be able to talk to them and glean some of their guidance about the model, about the story, and how to make the most of it for the model.”
The finished set includes a Ryland Grace minifigure and a Rocky figure, and while their bases can attach to the stand of the ship they can also be displayed separately, connected together by a representation of the Xenonite wall between which they communicate in the film. According to Nathan, the inspiration for that detail came directly from Lord and Miller.
“They identified that moment as a key emotional beat from the film, this meeting of Rocky and Ryland in the tunnel,” he added. “So they made it quite clear that that would be a really opportune moment of the film to depict. That gave us the inspiration to include the Xenonite wall, and also to do something with this detachable display so that we can focus on that story element and really highlight that as well.”
Ryland marks actor Ryan Gosling’s debut in LEGO, and while he didn’t comment on his minifigure he did tell io9 that he thinks the set as a whole is ‘amazing’ (a missed opportunity to not call it ‘AMAZE’, if you ask us). “It’s very surreal,” he said. “It rotates, and it does the different gravity configurations. It’s pretty awesome.”
11389 Project Hail Mary debuts on March 1 for £99.99 / $99.99 / €109.99 and is
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