Project Hail Mary became available on premium video on demand at 12 a.m. ET on Tuesday, May 12, giving viewers their first paid digital option after a theatrical run that stretched longer than expected. The film cost $24.99 to buy on PVOD or $19.99 to rent for 48 hours, and it was available the same day on Prime Video and Fandango at Home, with Apple TV and YouTube Movies & TV also expected to carry it on Tuesday.
Amazon MGM Studios delayed the film’s streaming release in mid-April and extended its time in theaters, then brought it back to IMAX for one week before the digital rollout. That stretch came after Project Hail Mary opened in theaters on March 20 and went on to earn $655.7 million worldwide, making it the second-highest-grossing film of 2026.
The film is adapted from Andy Weir’s bestselling novel and follows Ryland Grace, a middle school science teacher who becomes an astronaut and must work out why the sun is dying. On the way, he teams with Rocky, a spider-shaped alien made of rocks, in a story directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller and adapted for the screen by Drew Goddard. Ryan Gosling leads the cast alongside Sandra Hüller, Milana Vayntrub, Ken Leung and Liz Kingsman.
The release is notable because Amazon MGM Studios usually skips PVOD and sends its films straight to Prime Video. Instead, it used the film’s box-office strength to keep Project Hail Mary in theaters longer, then opened a paid digital window that lets the studio collect from fans still willing to pay for early home access. The move also marks a rare exception to its usual distribution playbook, which has favored direct streaming over a separate premium rental phase.
What comes next is less about whether the movie can find an audience online than about how the studio handles the next title. For now, Project Hail Mary has done something unusual for an Amazon MGM release: it stayed in theaters, played IMAX again, and still arrived as a PVOD draw rather than going straight to Prime Video.
