The much-anticipated sci-fi film Project Hail Mary is out in theaters today. In it, light-eating alien microbes sap the sun’s energy, threatening life on Earth with extinction. To find a solution, an unlikely hero—a middle school teacher played by Ryan Gosling—is sent on a one-way mission to the star Tau Ceti and encounters an otherworldly sidekick nicknamed Rocky along the way.

That’s because “Project Hail Mary,” the sci-fi adventure starring Ryan Gosling, blew past initial box office projections and had the second largest non-franchise opening weekend in history, surpassed ...