The story behind the intergalactic smash The Martian
WHEN self-confessed nerd Andy Weir lost his job, he wrote a novel and published it online for free. Now it’s been turned into an award-winning movie.
SOMETIMES truth really is stranger than fiction.
And when it comes to the reality behind last year’s Ridley Scott/Matt Damon smash The Martian, the genesis of the film itself is more unbelievable than the action on-screen.
The Martian was adapted from a 2011 novel by Andy Weir, a 44-year-old computer programmer and “science nerd” from San Francisco.
The film went on to gross over £480million worldwide, picking up seven Oscar nominations, six BAFTA nominations and winning Golden Globes for Best Picture and Best Actor for Damon, who plays astronaut Mark Watney.
In the film, Watney is stranded on Mars after a storm and uses his ingenuity to survive until a rescue mission arrives.
The movie also won praise for its attention to detail. The science is real and workable, so much so that Weir’s original novel has even become required reading for trainee astronauts at NASA.
The most extraordinary thing, however, is that anyone ever read the book at all – much
less saw its big-screen adaptation.
Just seven years ago, Weir was by his own admission a failed novelist.
After a career in computer programming – writing the code for 1995’s Warcraft II among others – he was made redundant in 1999.
With the cushion of his severance package, he took time out to try to make it as a full-time fiction writer.
His first book was so bad he destroyed every copy (except one, kept by his mother).
His second was rejected by every agent and publisher he sent it to.
And so, in 2002, he abandoned the dream and returned to full-time IT work.
But he kept writing in his spare time, publishing short stories on his website.
And in 2009, he started working on a story set on Mars because he was interested in the science behind an idea: would it be possible to send a manned mission to the planet?
And what if an astronaut were to be stranded there? How would he survive?
Weir called his story The Martian and started posting chapters on his website as he wrote them. An audience grew and as the story progressed he found a readership.
They were mostly scientists – as fascinated as he was by the physics behind the story – and would email Weir with comments and technical suggestions.
“I had chemists and electrical engineers emailing me, and a reactor tech on a US nuclear submarine telling me how this stuff works,” he says. “I wasn’t writing for a mainstream audience – I was writing for this core group of science-minded dorks like me.”
When he finished the novel, he left the whole thing on his website for anyone to read for free.
And then, because he kept getting requests from people who wanted to read it on their Kindles, he published it on Amazon for the minimum price he was allowed to charge – just 99 cents.
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Within three months it had sold 35,000 copies… and Weir received a call from an agent. Months later, he had a publishing contract with Random House and a deal with Fox for the film rights, signed within days of each other.
A year later, Weir was watching Matt Damon on the silver screen, playing the part of the character he had created in his spare time and for a story he had given away for free.
As he says himself, he feels like he’s won the lottery.
And his next project?
He has his eyes on the show that first turned him on to science fiction: Dr Who. “I’m a huge fan,” he says. “It’s a secret fantasy of mine to write an episode one day.”
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