Project Hail Mary entered Indian cinemas with the kind of large-scale promise that usually guarantees prime premium showcasing. Instead, the Ryan Gosling-led sci-fi film opened on March 26 with access to just 6 of India’s 34 IMAX screens, turning what should have been a straightforward event release into a bruising fight for visibility.
The reason is simple and unusually stark. Dhurandhar The Revenge, which debuted in IMAX on March 19, continued to occupy the lion’s share of the format even a week into its run, leaving Project Hail Mary with a sharply restricted footprint on day one. For a film sold heavily on spectacle and immersive viewing, that limited presence instantly became the key talking point around its India release.
How Dhurandhar Locked Up India’s IMAX Real Estate
By Wednesday morning, Project Hail Mary had managed IMAX play in only six centres across the country. Those locations were Maison Inox BKC in Mumbai, Cinepolis Seawoods in Navi Mumbai, Inox Megaplex Wakad and Cinepolis Nexus in Pune, Inox South City in Kolkata, and Broadway Cinemas in Coimbatore. Delhi-NCR, despite housing seven IMAX screens, had no show for the film at that stage.
Trade chatter through the night pointed to tough negotiations before Sony locked these six shows across six separate IMAX properties. The eventual allocation was far lower than expected for a title whose marketing leaned strongly into the premium-format experience. Several major centres including Bengaluru, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Kochi, Lucknow, Surat, Thane and Trivandrum had not allotted the film a full IMAX day, underlining just how aggressively the existing holdover had protected its ground.
That shortage stands out even more because Project Hail Mary is exactly the kind of film exhibitors typically push on giant screens. The scale, the visual design and the survival-in-space premise all feed directly into the IMAX pitch, making the limited rollout feel especially surprising for audiences who had expected wider access from the start.
Why Project Hail Mary Was Built As A Premium Experience
Project Hail Mary is a science fiction adventure directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, written by Drew Goddard and adapted from Andy Weir’s bestselling novel. The film stars Ryan Gosling as Ryland Grace, alongside Sandra Hüller, Lionel Boyce, Ken Leung and Milana Vayntrub. Produced by Amazon MGM Studios and released internationally by Sony Pictures, it opened in India on March 26 in English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu.
The story follows a science teacher who wakes up alone aboard a spacecraft with no memory of how he got there, only to discover that his mission may determine whether Earth survives. With that combination of mystery, cosmic scale and emotional stakes, the film arrived as a natural fit for large-format viewing, which is precisely why its six-screen IMAX start has drawn such close attention.
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