Sending an IMAX Screen Into Space with Project Hail Mary and Sony Pictures

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last month or so, you’ll likely have seen a trailer for Project Hail Mary, the hotly anticipated big-screen adaptation of the best-selling novel by Andy Weir. With this Ryan Gosling led adventure flick destined to be a blockbuster amongst sci-fi fans and beyond, the marketing team at Sony Pictures got in touch to promote the big release with a visually arresting astro advertising campaign.

Silver screen in space

The mission was clear: build a scale replica of an IMAX movie screen and use it to broadcast the Project Hail Mary trailer from 110,000 feet above the Earth. The tech team set to work building a strong yet lightweight carbon-fibre launch vehicle to maximise the chances of reaching such an ambitious target altitude. Next up was to engineer a space-capable digital display – in IMAX’s signature 1.90:1 aspect ratio, no less – that could comfortably operate in the sub-zero temperatures of space. Once paired with a duo of outer panels bearing IMAX and Project Hail Mary iconography, the miniature silver screen was primed and ready for its maiden voyage.

Project Hail Mary takes flight

We definitely got lucky with the weather, with our chosen launch window proving to be a gloriously sunny day. After a lovely spot of sunbathing at the launch site, we completed our pre-flight checks and sent the craft on its merry way into the far reaches of the upper stratosphere. Here, we remotely activated the IMAX movie screen and aired the Project Hail Mary trailer against the blackness of space, the curvature of the Earth and the thin blue line of its atmosphere! Another mission complete and another happy client. All that’s left is to assemble the Sent Into Space crew and celebrate a job well done with our first cinema trip of the year!