Van Lathan

That has been your Midnight Manifest.

I'll start with you.

Then, thoughts on Project Hail Mary?

Yes.

Two hours?

Over two hours?

Well, can I ask you, going off what you're saying, do you think part of this, and I think I had to get over it when I walked in the theater, is that I think part of the promotion and many of the early reactions...

We're kind of putting this movie, because it's a space movie, in the same lane as an Interstellar, The Martian.

And to me, this movie, even though it's a space movie, even though it does what those movies have done, which is take a movie star that we love and basically force them into space where they are basically carrying an entire movie by themselves and their charisma.

And while I think, obviously, this has a lot of the DNA of something like The Martian,

To me, it's almost a different project where it's not as... There's dramatic elements to this movie, but to me, this is almost a more family-friendly version of something like Interstellar or The Martian, which it took me a while to wrap my head around that because I think some of the positioning of it is positioning it in terms of films that to me are a little bit more...

existential and serious, and this movie can be that, but it is kind of a family-friendly romp in a lot of ways to me.

Why are you doing that?

Well, I mean... No, because to me, that was a lot of the early reaction to the film.

And then a lot of the critics coming out of those first screenings.

Sure.

I think they were obviously very, like, enthused.

And I think those were, like, the early comparisons.

And even in some of the, like, marketing and interviews, I think they were trying to situate the movie.

Well, also, I think they hid the ball for a while, which was Rocky.