'Spaceman' ending explained: Is the giant spider in Adam Sandler’s Netflix movie real? (2024)

Adam Sandler movies don’t tend to be head-scratchers, but Spaceman—a new sci-fi drama that began streaming on Netflix today—is an exception.

Directed by Johan Renck and written by Colby Day, Spaceman is an adaptation of the 2017 novelSpaceman of Bohemiaby Czech author Jaroslav Kalfař. It’s a slow-moving, humorless film that finds Sandler as a lonely astronaut talking to the only other being on his spaceship: A giant spider that he may or may not have hallucinated.

The reason for Sandler’s journey in space is secondary to his emotional journey with his wife, Lenka (played by Oscar-nominated actor Carey Mulligan). Still, though it’s flimsy, there is some semblance of a plot. When it all comes to a head at the end of the movie, that’s when things start to get confusing.

If you got lost along the long journey to Jupiter, don’t worry—Decider is here to help. Read on for a full breakdown of the Spaceman plot summary and the Spaceman ending explained, including whether Hanus is real.

Spaceman plot summary:

Jakub Procházka (Sandler), a Czech astronaut on a year-long solo mission in space to collect special space dust on the edges of the galaxy. Specifically, he is on a mission to investigate the something called the “Chopra cloud,” a strange purple mist visible from earth, even though it’s all the way out beyond Jupiter. His job is to go collect some particles from the cloud to figure out what the heck it is. Though he is in regular contact with his mission control handler, Peter (Kunal Nayyar), back on Earth, Jakub spends most of his days in total silence, completely alone.

We meet Jakub near the end of his mission when he’s not doing so well. His pregnant wife Lenka (Carey Mulligan) has stopped taking his calls. In fact, she’s decided to end the marriage. But mission control is worried about Jakub’s mental health, and decides not to deliver Lenka’s break-up message. Jakub not sleeping well, in part because a loud noise coming from his spaceship bathroom. Then, one day, a giant spider appears on Jakub’s ship and starts talking to him, in a slow, dreamy voice (Paul Dano).

The spider says he means no harm, but Jakub, understandably, freaks. The sensors detect no other lifeforms besides Jakub on board. Either Jakub is hallucinating the spider, or its alien DNA is not detectable by the sensors. He asks mission control to disinfect the ship. It does no good—the spider informs Jakub the cleaning products can’t harm it, though it does make him sneeze. The spider, whom Jakub later names Hanuš, tells Jakub it was fleeing it’s planet and sensed Jakub’s loneliness. Intrigued, it boarded Jakub’s ship.

Hanuš also has the power to dredge up Jakub’s memories to the forefront of his mind. It uses this power to learn about Jakub’s childhood and his troubled relationship with his wife Lenka. We watch that relationship play out, and we learn that Jakub is the one who pushed his wife away; that he abandoned her on earth (while she was pregnant with his child!) to go on this mission.

Jakub begins to enjoy his chats with the spider. Hanuš doesn’t say much about himself in return; only that he’s from “the beginning,” and that he fled his planet when a mysterious group called the Gorompeds attacked. But eventually, Hanuš grows frustrated with Jakub’s refusal to admit he was wrong to abandon his pregnant wife back on Earth. He informs Jakub he’ll let the astronaut finish his mission alone, because “my interest in you has expired.” Damn, that’s cold Hanuš.

By this point, Jakub has nearly reached the Chopra cloud and his communications with mission control are down. But thanks to the magic of necessary plot devices, he finds a way to make a phone call to his handler Peter. Peter tracks down Lenka and hands her the phone, allowing Jakub to deliver his wife a message. He tells her he’s sorry for leaving, that he wants to come home, and that she’s the only thing that matters to him. He admits he was wrong for not letting her in, but he begs for a second chance, and promises to do better.

After Jakub makes amends with Lenka, Hanuš returns. But something’s wrong—his breathing his heavy and labored. Hanuš admits to Jakub that though he escaped his planet when the Gorompeds attacked, he didn’t leave soon enough. The giant spider is dying. After a long, awkward hug between man and spider, Jakub finally enters the Chopra cloud.

Spaceman ending explained:

Just as Jakub is collecting particles from the Chopra cloud, Hanuš begins choking. Somehow, the spider ends up outside the spacecraft, floating away in space. Jakub abandons his mission to help his spider friend. He suits up and follows Hanuš into space, with nothing but a little container of decontaminant. He attempts to blast the spider with the decontaminant to kill off the Gorompeds thing that’s killing Hanuš. Hanuš tells him it was a valiant effort, but that he’s still dying.

As they float together in space—both waiting to die—Jakub tells Hanuš he almost drowned as a boy. Hanuš tells Jakub he won’t die here, and the spider leads Jakub through the Chopra cloud. As they travel through the cloud—which Hanuš tells Jakub is both the beginning, the end, and everything in between—Jakub’s life flashes before his eyes, ending on the moment he met Lenka. Jakub marvels at the beauty of the universe and concludes he needs to return to Lenka.

Once on the other side of the cloud, Hanuš is consumed by the Gorompeds and dies. Jakub floats into a space station, which is controlled by the South Koreans. (Earlier in the film, it was said that Jakub was competing with South Korea to explore the Chopra cloud.) Jakub uses the space station phone to call Lenka, to ask her if she would still kiss him, knowing how their relationship would go.

“It was a really good kiss,” Lenka replies. With that, the movie ends.

Is Hanus real in Spaceman?

That’s the question, right? In an interview for the Spaceman press notes, director Johan Renck says you can interpret the spider both as real and imagined. “You can obviously think of Hanuš as being a creature from the beginning of time, or you can think of him as being manifested by Jakub in his cabin-fever state and isolation in the space ship as a companion to talk to,” Renck said. “I’ve always found that I have an ability to have these inner dialogues with myself when things are challenging or in situations of severity. And I tend to find those conversations give a lot of clarity. I think we all have that ability to have one outer you and one inner you.”

That said, Renck went on to say that he does see Hanus as a real alien being. “We are not alone in the universe. We know there are Hanušes out there. I don’t want to turn him into something drab. I want him to be this altruistic creature who believes he can help Jakub solve some of the challenges he’s facing. I don’t want this film to be about some kind of manifestation from a lonely astronaut. That bores me a little bit, actually.”

Personally, I think the spider is a figment of Jakub’s imagination. Hanuš tells Jakub, “I’m as real as you are,” which I interpret to mean that Hanuš is real in the sense that Jakub’s conflicted sense of self is real. It’s just a coping method Jakub’s mind invents to help him acknowledge and fix his loneliness. But that’s just me!