The highly anticipated, big-budget Ryan Gosling contains not a single shot of green/bluescreen in the entire film.

That’s really significant, considering Project Hail Mary is a sci-fi epic that’s 156 minutes long.

The Amazon MGM project is based on The Martian author Andy Weir’s best-selling hard-science novel Project Hail Mary. 

It tells the story of an astronaut (Gosling) on high-stakes mission to save Earth from an interstellar disaster who encounters an alien trying to save his world from the same fate.

Christopher Miller, who directed the film along with Phil Lord, told Comicbook.com (below), “What’s fun about the movie is that there is no greenscreen in the movie whatsoever. Not a single green- or bluescreen was used. The whole ship was built as a set from the inside. We had a huge section of the exterior of the ship on the outside that we built. [The alien character Rocky] was really with us at all times.

“That’s what makes it feel real and makes it feel natural,” Miller continued. “And the way that [cinematographer Greg Fraser’s] team lit [the set] with a lot of practical effects, allowed him to move the camera wherever and find these moments. Because you weren’t just guessing and pointing it at where Rocky might be someday [if the character was added in postproduction]. That’s what makes [the action] feel like it was captured in the moment.”

Project Hail Mary has a reported gross budget of $248 million ($200 million after tax credits, says Puck) and represents a bit of a Hail Mary by the studio. But at a time when many sci-fi, superhero and fantasy projects are stuffed with actors performing against greenscreen backgrounds (not to mention our collective increasing weariness of so-called “AI slop” videos online), the practical nature of the film could prove to be a selling point.

Continued Miller: “We built the entire interior of the Hail Mary ship — but within the ship, there were still wire and puppeteer removals and ceiling replacements, etc. When Ryan is outside on the hull of the ship, we shot him in front of a black background for space and a shifting hue background when he was up against the aurora of a planet which allowed for truer interactive light on him than a green screen would. The wide space exteriors and spaceship shots were entirely digital and beautifully done by ILM. Rocky was a seamless blend of puppetry and animation from Framestore. And other great work from many more. It really does take a village, and we had the best of the best on our side.”

The cast also includes Sandra Hüller, Lionel Boyce, Ken Leung and Milana Vayntrub. Project Hail Mary is released in theaters on March 20.