“Sinners” is a winner again, on its way to topping the box office for its second weekend in a row. Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan’s vampire thriller won Friday, ahead of new releases like Ben Affleck’s action sequel “The Accountant 2,” Sony’s video game adaptation “Until Dawn” and Disney’s re-release of “Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith.”
Warner Bros. is scoring a spectacular hold for the sophomore frame of “Sinners,” with Friday’s total of $13 million marking a tiny 8% drop from its daily total last week. (The film added a few theaters too, going from 3,308 venues to 3,347.) A major component of that staying power has been demand for Imax and other premium-large format viewing. Imax alone represented 20% of revenue on opening weekend.
Even against its $90 million production budget, “Sinners” has delivered an enduring performance, consistently outperforming industry projections so far in North America. That includes last week when it beat forecasts to snag a No. 1 opening ahead of “A Minecraft Movie” and the biggest debut for an original film since 2019. Daily holds have been terrific through the past week, and now the film is looking to cross $100 million domestic sometime Saturday — less than nine days into release.
Some competitors are projecting a drop below 10% on the three-day for “Sinners.” That’d be the best second-weekend slide for an opening over $45 million since “Meet the Fockers” fell 9.5% in December 2004 — and that movie was playing through the Christmas season. “Sinners” is doing this without a boost from a holiday on the calendar. To put it plainly, holds like this almost never happen. The last original feature to cross $200 million in North America was Pixar’s “Coco” ($210 million); that benchmark is definitely now on the table for “Sinners.”
Beyond its own performance, the staying power also underlines the very real (and largely untapped) appetite for original blockbuster productions, especially when talent delivers. In its second weekend, “Sinners” is winning the battle for viewers against another thriller in “The Accountant 2” and another horror movie in “Until Dawn” — both newer releases and, unlike “Sinners,” both greenlit under the perceived security of established IP.
Meanwhile, “The Accountant 2” audited $9.4 million in ticket sales across Friday and preview screenings, playing in 3,610 venues. The action sequel, which sees Ben Affleck and Jon Bernthal return as fraternal assassins, is looking at a $25 million opening weekend. That’s pacing a touch ahead of the first “Accountant,” which was released by Warner Bros. in 2016 and opened to $24 million. That film, also directed by Gavin O’Connor, was a modest theatrical hit, finishing with $155 million worldwide, but became one of the most-rented digital films of 2017.
That downstream popularity is a major reason why the R-rated “Accountant 2” got made. The sequel cost $80 million before marketing — nearly doubling the original’s $45 million price tag. The film premiered at SXSW Festival in March, where it earned positive reviews. The movie is working for audiences too, with survey firm Cinema Score polling a strong “A-” grade among ticketbuyers.
But at a steep bump in production cost, Amazon MGM may have had higher hopes for the opening of “The Accountant 2.” Then one remembers “Red One,” Amazon’s Christmas-themed Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans action spectacle that opened to $32 million in November against a massive $250 million production budget. That film was later touted as a streaming success by the company. Its head of theatrical distribution Kevin Wilson argued a theatrical release is a win if grosses just cover marketing and distribution costs, before a final launch on the popular Prime Video service. Amazon is still a streaming company more than it’s a theatrical studio, so its logic may be that the true value of “Accountant 2” lies outside of publicly reported box office figures.
In a close third is Disney’s re-release of “Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith,” likely the most respected of George Lucas’ late-career prequel trilogy and certainly a space opera that has only grown in reputation since its 2005 debut. Playing in 2,775 theaters, the film earned $11.3 million across Friday and preview screenings and is now headed to a three-day gross north of $20 million. The expectation is the film will ease over the weekend, though it has a shot at bumping “The Accountant 2” for second.
“Sith” has the high ground as a fan-favorite. For comparison, it’s more than doubling last year’s 25th anniversary re-release of “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace,” which did an $8 million opening weekend. The 40th anniversary of “Return of the Jedi” in 2023 did $5.1 million. (Eyes on “Episode II — Attack of the Clones,” which came out in 2002 and has a silver anniversary in two years.)
Opening in fifth, Sony and Screen Gems’ “Until Dawn” earned $3.2 million from 3,055 venues across Friday and previews. The movie is an adaptation of the Sony PlayStation banner’s popular video game of the same name. It also marks director David F. Sandberg’s horror homecoming after helming the “Shazam!” superhero duology.
Projections are at a three-day north of $7 million for “Until Dawn.” Reviews have been middling and Cinema Score turned in a mediocre “C+” grade — neither promising signs for staying power. The R-rated film wasn’t a big spend, at a cost of $15 million to produce.
Meanwhile, Warner Bros. and Legendary Entertainment get fourth place with “A Minecraft Movie,” which notched another $5.1 million on Friday. Now in its fourth weekend, the comedy adaptation of Mojang’s video game juggernaut is looking at a fall of around 50% to hit a $377 million domestic total through Sunday. That would push it past “Jurassic World Dominion” ($376 million) as the 58th highest-grossing North American release of all time, with plenty more spots to climb. The film passed $700 million worldwide earlier this week.
Expanding this weekend, A24’s “The Legend of Ochi” is bumping up to 1,150 locations. The fantasy adventure, from director Isaiah Saxon, earned about $610,000 on Friday and is looking at a three-day frame in the low seven-digits.
