Fans of “Project Hail Mary” can watch the sci-fi epic in a whole new way starting this Friday.
The official “Project Hail Mary” accounts on social media announced Thursday, that audiences will be able to sync directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s commentary to screenings of the film starting this weekend.
The commentary can be accessed through the TheaterEars app on audiences’ smartphones. Traditionally, this app allows viewers to access Spanish-language and audio-descriptive tracks for films to increase accessibility for theatrical screenings.
To access the audio tracks, audiences need to download the TheaterEars app onto their phones. After making an account, they can then select the theater and showtime for the movie they’re seeing. From there, they can queue up a given track — whether that be the director’s commentary or some other audio — to play in their earbuds in sync with the film.
“Project Hail Mary” shared a step-by-step guide on socials sharing how audiences can “see ‘Project Hail Mary’ again with the Directors’ Experience.” You can view the guide below.
This announcement is an exciting one for fans of directors’ commentaries, once a staple of home video releases. Physical media fans in recent years have decried the decline of such commentaries on 4K and Blu-Ray releases, with new films arriving more and more often with only the barest of features — often just the film itself and the necessary audio and subtitle tracks.
“Project Hail Mary” isn’t the first film to release a commentary track while the movie is still in theaters. Rian Johnson has done this a couple of times in his career, releasing commentaries for films like “Looper” and “Knives Out.” Kevin Smith famously attempted to get an audio commentary for “Clerks II” released as a podcast while the film was in theaters, but that project never came to fruition.
But the “Project Hail Mary” commentary track speaks to the enthusiasm behind the film and its intricate, tactile approach to sci-fi craft. The film dropped only 32% in its second weekend, bringing in another $54.5 million and bringing the domestic total to $164.3 million and counting. Imax announced on Monday that the film would remain a recurring feature on the large-format screens in the weeks to come.
The “Project Hail Mary” directors’ commentary can be accessed on the TheaterEars app starting Friday.
