Set Review: I still can’t believe there’s a ‘Project Hail Mary’ Lego set

If you’ve been reading Popculturology these past few months, you know that Project Hail Mary is one of the movies I’m most looking forward to in 2026. While I missed the Andy Weir novel that the movie is based on when it was published in 2021, I flew through Project Hail Mary when I finally picked it up in 2024.

I’m happy that I read the book in time before we saw anything from the adaptation directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller and starring Ryan Gosling. I was able to create my own visuals without ever being influenced by what the movie was working on. (I somehow didn’t even know that Gosling had been cast as Ryland Grace when I read Project Hail Mary, a remarkable feat for a guy who runs a pop culture newsletter.) Even the presence of Rocky was a surprise to me going into the book.

But I’m incredibly excited about the movie now.

I already have my ticket for the Thursday night it hits theaters. I can’t wait to see what Lord and Miller have pulled off with this one. The early buzz has been extremely positive, and I’m ready to be emotionally devastated in a dark theater thanks to Grace and Rocky.

When Lego announced a few weeks back that it had created a Lego Icons set bringing the Hail Mary spaceship to life in brick form, I was surprised. Sure, Lego does movie tie-ins all the time ... but a set based on an adaptation of a novel that isn’t part of a series or franchise? The Dune Ornithopter Lego set sits on a shelf right next to my desk, but that’s Dune.

In a chat with io9, the film’s directors revealed that they actually pushed Lego to make his set a reality.

“They don’t normally do things that are not based on already successful franchises. Like a one-off movie like this, that’s its own thing,” Miller told the site. “But we told them to trust us. And we said, ‘Come to the set and see what it is and how special it is.’”

“We secretly cut a whole 10-minute piece to show them, and it blew them away,” Lord added. “They understood how special the movie was and how Lego fans were going to respond to it.”

The Project Hail Mary set could’ve easily been a scaled down space craft with a Gosling minifig and a brick-built Rocky. But the Lego designers designed something pretty cool, creating a version of the Hail Mary, the ship sent to Tau Ceti, that rotates and even has a tiny crew module that can pop in and out of the larger ship.

I decided that it was time for Popculturology to take a page out of Snackology’s playbook and pick up the Project Hail Mary set for a review ...