Some writing advice from Project Hail Mary’s Andy Weir

Andy Weir has done pretty well when it comes to adaptations. His first novel, The Martianwas made into a film in 2015, and the Ridley Scott-directed film grossed over $600 million at the box office. And Hail Mary Project Just had a huge opening weekend that puts it on track to become one of the biggest films of the year. However, despite this success, Weir tells me that he does his best to keep the idea of ​​an adaptation out of his mind when starting a new novel. “I try not to think about it at all,” he explains.

The reason, according to Weir, is that the two mediums are so different. It’s something he’s learned over the past decade, especially when it comes to Hail Mary Projecton which Weir served as producer. “I was intimately involved in every aspect of the production,” he explains. “I was there for filming, principal photography, helped with casting and director selection, post-production and editing. I was able to give notes on everything. The main reason I’m a producer is because of the way my contract is structured, but for the most part I tried to stay away from real producers who knew what they were doing.”

This role gave him a better understanding of how films are made. The Martianhe says, “they just gave me money and told me to leave” – but he says his experience with the two films hasn’t changed the way he approaches his writing process.

Here’s how he explained it to me:

When I write a book — and this is advice I give to all authors — I don’t think about a film adaptation. If you want to write a movie, write a screenplay. But if you want to write a book, write a book. And you need to focus on the reader’s experience while they read your book. You shouldn’t limit yourself to what would make a good cinematic film. You need to focus on what makes a good literary book. Because there are a lot of things you can do in books that you can’t do in movies, and vice versa, so you should take advantage of your much larger canvas and the flexibility you have with the written word. Just use all of these tools rather than just writing a novelization of a movie you have in mind.

“He has these wonderful big cinematic ideas,” Goddard says. “He has a wonderful sense of intrigue. For me personally, it’s the soul of his writing that really makes it transcend. It’s easy to forget that because his ideas were so big and hard science is so at the forefront, I think people think that’s the key to his success. But for me, I love that he’s writing about these deeper themes about humanity. He would say no, he’s just trying to show you a good time. I’m not I agree with him. I see these beautiful themes of human compassion and the emotion that is between the words that he writes, and I feel like my job is to bring out that soul and put it on screen.

And that’s what helped Goddard overcome his initial fear when it came to Hail Mary Projectthe scenario. “I knew we had to try it because I love this book so much,” he says.