Upon release, Andy Weir's book was labelled as 'Apollo 13 meets Cast Away', which is a pretty understandable comparison; it features a manned mission into space that goes terribly wrong, like the former, and the latter's man stranded alone with little hope of survival. Another, slightly more modern comparison - because all films need to be like 'x' meets 'y', obviously - is Gravity meets Cast Away. Again, you can certainly see why this is being said, because Gravity in itself had elements of Cast Away in it, only with the story being transported to space. It's the tale of one person struggling against all the odds, doing everything they can to try and survive, of adapting, learning, conquering fears, dealing with isolation, and talking to a volleyball. OK, admittedly there isn't any of that last one in The Martian (nor Gravity for that matter), but the rest of it is still there. Although this won't just be a derivative movie - there's plenty to make it stand out on its own as well.