It’s a Warner Bros. weekend at the box office, with the studio taking the top two slots on domestic charts. Ryan Coogler‘s vampire thriller “Sinners” seems to be coming short of the firepower needed to knock off the megasmash “A Minecraft Movie” for first place. But “Sinners” still launched with a solid $19.2 million gross across Friday and preview screenings, playing 3,308 venues (a good chunk less than the 4,302 locations “Minecraft” is in, notably). That puts it on pace to beat out Warner’s own projections for a three-day opening of $40 million.
“Sinners” also gets a boost from luxury ticket prices for Imax, including 70mm showtimes. Warner Bros.’ marketing campaign has heavily emphasized the premium format and the production’s employment of Imax cameras on-set — a technical flourish that’s largely been associated with the films of Christopher Nolan in recent years. As “Oppenheimer” showed terrific holds, with audiences waiting for the chance to see the film in Imax, “Sinners” could see a similarly favorable tail if Warner succeeded at instilling excitement for the format with viewers. The thriller gets Imax auditoriums for two weeks, before being replaced by Disney’s Marvel tentpole “Thunderbolts.”
“Sinners” is one of the bigger swings on the calendar this year. It cost $90 million to produce — a hefty price tag for an original, R-rated feature — and Warner Bros. won the package, in part, by agreeing with Coogler that the filmmaker would have the film rights revert back to him after 25 years. It’s a rare concession for a studio to make, only matched in recent memory by Quentin Tarantino’s deal with Sony on “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”
That’s all a substantial investment, but “Sinners” is hitting all the right checkboxes for future success. Coogler and Jordan, who brought personality to IP fare with the “Rocky” spinoff “Creed” and Marvel’s “Black Panther,” have delivered the goods once again, scoring some of the best reviews of the year and great audience sentiment to boot. Moviegoer survey firm Cinema Score polled a stellar “A” grade — no small task for a horror film, which tend to score lower. Those are all great signs for the long-term prospects of “Sinners”; it just needs to perform now.
Set in the 1930’s blues scene of the Mississippi Delta, “Sinners” stars Jordan as twin brothers, Smoke and Stack, returning to the south and forced to fend off a horde of bloodsuckers. The cast also includes Hailee Steinfeld, Jack O’Connell and Delroy Lindo.
Meanwhile, Warner Bros. gets to claim first too, with “A Minecraft Movie” still jockeying up the box office record books, earning another $16 million on Friday. It’s another fantastic hold, falling just 22% from its daily total last week. Fifteen days into release, the Legendary Entertainment production has now entered the top-100 all-time list of domestic grossers and could crack $350 million through Sunday. How high can it climb?
In third place, Angel Studios is taking advantage of Easter weekend with its biblical animated adaptation “The King of Kings,” earning another $6.6 million on Friday. Rivals have the Korea-produced feature earning $17 million in its second weekend, which would mark a slim 12% drop from its debut. Even contending against “Minecraft” for family audiences, “King of Kings” has hit the special alchemy of superb sentiment among its target audience and perfect release timing with the Easter holiday. The reward is Angel Studios’ second-biggest hit of all-time, behind only its original breakthrough “Sound of Freedom.”
Fourth goes to “The Amateur,” which earned another $2.3 million on Friday. Now in its second weekend, the Disney release, hailing from its 20th Century Studios banner, is hoping to cross $27 million through Sunday. Rivals are projecting a 54% drop, which would actually be solid considering the Rami Malek thriller scored middling reviews. But the $60 million production budget for the PG-13 espionage film is a tough hurdle to success.
A24’s “Warfare” rounds out the top five, with the real-time military thriller firing off about $1.6 million on Friday and eyeing a $4.8 million second weekend. The Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza-directed feature looks to hit a $17 million domestic total through Sunday.
Also opening this weekend, Bleecker Street has the remake of “The Wedding Banquet,” with a cast including Lily Gladstone, Bowen Yang and Kelly Marie Tran, in 1,133 theaters. The well-reviewed rom-com, which premiered at Sundance at the start of the year, earned about $360,000 on Friday and will struggle to reach $1 million in its opening.
GKids is debuting “Colorful Stage! The Movie: A Miku Who Can’t Sing,” based on a popular rhythm video game featuring the Hatsune Miku voicebank and character, in roughly 800 locations. The anime feature is looking at a three-day bow of around $2.7 million.
Briarcliff Entertainment has the animated comedy “Sneaks” in about 1,500 venues. The film, which stars the voices of Anthony Mackie and Chloe Bailey as two sneakers traversing New York after being separated, earned about $240,000 on Friday and will open far out of the top 10.
