Aditya Sood reveals how Project Hail Mary made it to the big screens

Therersquos a very specific kind of frenzy that only a bigscreen spectacle can create in India Think when Dhurandhar The Revenge found itself sold out in paid preview shows Thatrsquos what happened to Project Hail Mary IMAX shows sold out days in advance with 3 am screenings filling up after excited cinephiles waged a war to ensure the film releases in IMAX widelyWhen we tell Aditya Sood this mdash that people have been trying for days to get tickets mdash he is both amused and moved He says ldquoObviously you want to see passion Wersquore so passionate about making the films So to see that being met with passion from people who want to see the filmhellip it should be seen on the biggest screen possiblerdquoTherersquos something telling in that response Because if therersquos one thread that runs through Soodrsquos journey from a kid watching pirated VHS tapes in Seattle to producing one of the biggest scifi films of the decade is that of faith in the big screen experienceRyan Gosling PicGetty ImagesProject Hail Mary arrives with something almost unfashionable in the current climate mdash hope ldquoWe like to say we want to make movies that are at least 51 per cent optimistichellip We understand that the world is complicated We donrsquot want to be over the top or saccharine Therersquos real struggle out there But we really want people to come out of the theatre feeling better than when they came inrdquo He credits directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller with sharpening that idea further ldquoThey feel their mission as filmmakers is to show models of goodness in the world And I think therersquos no better mission than thatrdquoFor Indian audiences where the idea of a ldquoproducerrdquo often collapses into financier studio head or even auteur Soodrsquos role can feel elusive He laughs about this particularly when explaining his job to extended family ldquoProducer can mean a lot of different things Irsquoll tell you about what I dohellip I really do whatrsquos called creative producing You start from the very beginning mdash finding an idea a book a scriptAditya SoodYou work with the writer develop it then put it together with the director actors all the creative talent Irsquom not writing the cheque the studio is but my job is to protect the creative vision and do it in a fiscally responsible way Someone once told me be the most businessminded person on the creative team or the most creativeminded person on the business team If you can translate between those two worlds there will always be a job for yourdquoIf audiences are only now going to watch Project Hail Mary Sood has been living with it for six years ldquoAnytime you get that feeling where you canrsquot put something down you must know there is something powerful in there worth going forward with I started reading the book at noon and finished at 8 pm You know therersquos something special It can take years and years and a lot of misstepshellip but if you donrsquot believe in it itrsquos never going to happen The only thing you really have is your own point of view and the courage of your convictionrdquoFor all its scale Project Hail Mary carries small deeply personal imprints mdash Easter eggs that quietly tether a global story to one manrsquos history Sood shares one of them with particular affection ldquoWe were figuring out which country built which module of the shiphellip and I said the medical module should be from India My mother is a doctor My grandmother was one of the first female doctors in India she graduated in 1929 Our production designer surprised me with a plaque The company that built the medical robot was lsquoRekashantirsquo mdash my mom and grandmotherrsquos namesrdquoBorn in England raised in Seattle in a time before global connectivity cinema became a bridge back to India ldquoI come from a family of doctors So there was no connection to cinema except how it kept us tied to India We probably had the first VCR on the block We didnrsquot have a dining table but we had that I watched Star Wars three times a day for an entire summer And something unlockedrdquoBefore we leave he tells us his life has come full circle on this film When we ask about his favourite memory from the making of Project Hail Mary the scale of it all quietly slips away He talks about his son visiting the set in London The moment he remembers is a small one His son who had grown up around space stories born the year The Martian 2015 released walked onto the set looked around pointed at a window and said thatrsquos the cupola ldquoItrsquos part of the International Space Stationrdquo Sood recalls him saying ldquoThatrsquos when I felt like okay wersquove done our jobrdquo