The theater lights dip. A seat shudders under my weight and a mist sprays across my face — not rain, but a promise that this screening will move you physically as well as emotionally. I turned to you and said: if you pay once for a movie, why not get twelve different shows?
I watched Phil Lord and Chris Miller wander Los Angeles, testing Project Hail Mary in almost a dozen setups. They laugh on camera, but what they’re doing is a public service: explaining how the same frame and the same actors — yes, Ryan Gosling and Andy Weir’s story — can feel like different films depending on screen, sound, and motion.
At a busy multiplex you can sense the hierarchy of formats the moment you walk in
Some auditoriums announce themselves before you enter: an IMAX lobby bears its logo like a coat of arms; Dolby Cinema bristles with tech. You need that first read because the movie physically changes shape in many of these versions — aspect ratios expand and contract, sound layers shift, seats may even move.
Lord and Miller recommend IMAX 70mm or IMAX 1:43 when you want the widest, most immersive composition. That’s not marketing-speak; it’s how the filmmakers framed the space so the big setpieces in orbit swell to fill the screen. If you’re shopping for an emotional and visual hit, those two formats are where the film’s architectural choices pay off.
Outside the projection booth, formats become tools rather than labels
In real life I watched a sequence crop and then bloom across three different screens within an hour. Watching those edits side-by-side made clear why format choice matters: the image breathes differently, and your attention follows.
Here are the 12 formats Lord and Miller list — some you’ll recognize instantly, others are niche tech names that matter to cinephiles and ticket-buyers alike:
- IMAX 70mm film
- IMAX 1:43
- IMAX 1:85
- D-Box
- ScreenX
- Premium Large Format (like Cinemark XD)
- 4DX
- Dolby Cinema (with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos)
- HDR by Barco
- MX4D
- 70mm
- Standard
Some of those — HDR by Barco and Dolby Cinema — compete on projection and object-level sound. Others — 4DX and MX4D — compete on physical sensations. MX4D is essentially another take on the motion-and-effect model that 4DX uses; HDR by Barco is pitched as a higher-end projector option compared with Dolby’s package.
What is 4DX?
If you haven’t experienced it, 4DX feels like a theme-park ride: seats tilt, winds gust, mist hits your face, and scent and vibration annotations try to match what’s on screen. Lord and Miller laugh through the sequence, but the effect is deliberate — it turns cinematic rhythm into a multi-sensory choreography.
In quiet corners of the city you learn that aspect-ratio shifts are deliberate storytelling choices
At one screening I noticed the black bars retreat during a wide-space panorama, and the frame felt more like an ocean than a window. That framing choice sends a message: space scenes are meant to consume attention, while Earth-bound beats tighten in on character.
The film shifts its aspect ratio throughout — a lot of the movie is set in space and those sequences are framed significantly larger than the terrestrial scenes. Depending on the auditorium, those expansions vary, which is why filmmakers lean on IMAX 70mm or IMAX 1:43 to preserve the full composition. Those moments land hard because the visual scale literally grows; the aspect-ratio shifts hit like a curtain being pulled back.
How many formats will Project Hail Mary be released in?
The short answer: 12 formats in total. Lord and Miller cover about nine of them in their video tour, but the full list includes everything from standard screens to the big film formats and the motion-effect experiences named above.
At the end of the trailer loop, there’s a practical test: how much do you want to spend for a version of the movie?
You can see this movie a dozen times and walk out with a dozen memories. Some of those will be about sight and sound — IMAX and Dolby framing — and some will be about bodily memory — 4DX, MX4D, D-Box seat motion. You decide which currency of experience matters to you.
Which format should I watch Project Hail Mary in?
If you care most about composition and scale, chase IMAX 70mm or IMAX 1:43. If you want a visceral, conserved-chaos screening where the auditorium becomes part of the storytelling, try 4DX or MX4D. If immersive audio and color precision are your priorities, Dolby Cinema or HDR by Barco are the sensible choices. I’ll tell you this as a viewer: each choice trades one set of pleasures for another.
Phil Lord and Chris Miller turn the promotional tour into a consumer primer, and Ryan Coogler did something similar with his release breakdown last year — directors explaining formats is suddenly a small public service for moviegoers who spend premium money. Project Hail Mary opens in theaters on March 20, and tickets go on sale February 20.
So which experience will you pay for — the cinematic swell or the full-body thrill?