- Project Hail Mary's directors have revealed how long it took to come up with Rocky's final look
- The sci-fi movie's art team came up with 300 designs for the adorable alien
- The filmmakers have explained why he was shown in the trailers, too
Project Hail Mary's (PHM) directing team has revealed how long it took to settle on the final look for its cute extraterrestrial Rocky.
In an exclusive chat with TechRadar, Phil Lord and Chris Miller discussed the year-long process of bringing the spider-like creature to life. As part of the same interview, they also outlined their reasons for Rocky's appearance in Project Hail Mary's first trailer and subsequent teasers after some people questioned why his reveal wasn't held back for the final cut.
But let's start at the beginning. For the uninitiated: Rocky is an adorable yet highly intelligent alien that Ryan Gosling's Ryland Grace meets in one of this year's most exciting new movies. Agreeing to work together to solve an intergalactic mystery — read more about its plot in my Project Hail Mary review — the pair soon forge a close bond amid their perilous spacefaring quest.
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Naturally, the first obstacle that Lord, Miller, and the film's art department had to overcome was Rocky's design.
A helping hand was afforded by the alien's description in Andy Weir's book namesake. However, with readers of said novel likely imagining Rocky in their own unique way, PHM's crew knew they wouldn't be able to please everyone.
Nevertheless, so began a period of trial and error as those responsible for bringing Rocky to life — concept artists, the visual effects team, and a group of puppeteers from Creature Shop, among others — worked towards coming up with a final look that most would be happy with.
"We easily came up with 300 iterations," Lord admitted. "We took Andy's description as a springboard, cast the net really wide, and then started to refine him down.
"The things that mattered to us was what the book proposed," he continued. "Rocky has no eyes or mouth, so he has to express himself through movement. As animators, that really appealed to us.
"Then, we had to create rock facets that would allow the audience to project personhood onto him, but without helping too much. After that, we tried to make every facet a different personality type, like 'this one means he's more emotionally open' and 'this one shows he's grouchy.'"
"We worked for an entire year on him," Miller added. "Neal Scanlan and our puppet team made Rocky appealing, interesting, and full of character. They even gave him some cultural aspects to denote his history, such as adding carvings to his body."
"He also a shirt and tool belt," Lord interjected. "But, what do they look like? So, the design team put on fashion shows to help us figure all of that stuff out."
As for the decision to include Rocky in PHM's marketing materials, Lord and Miller defended the choice on Amazon's behalf. Indeed, with Rocky on co-starring duties for much of its story, the duo insisted that it made sense for him to be part of its trailers and other promotional works.
"Fundamentally, this movie is about Ryland and Rocky," Lord said. "That means that premise needs to be expressed a little bit in the materials, so people know what they're walking into [when they see the film]. You know, it's not a 'lonely guy in space' movie. It's about a guy who's lonely on Earth and, when he gets to space, makes a friend."
"If you take out Rocky [of the trailers], you can't use two-thirds of the movie," Miller added. "So, people should look at it not as a twist ending, but a twist beginning."
Project Hail Mary will achieve take-off in theaters on March 19 (UK and Australia) and March 20 (US and everywhere else).
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