Ryan Googler’s Sinners, starring Michael B. Jordan, is more than finding redemption at the Easter weekend box office. Ditto for Warner Bros.
In a surprise upset, the movie is on course to beat fellow Warners’ blockbuster A Minecraft Movie and top the chart with $45 million to $46 million from 3,308 theaters, well ahead of an expected $40 million (the studio has yet to release official numbers). Based on Friday’s gross of $19.2 million, Sinners looked to open to $40 million, but a spike in walk-up Saturday business changed the landscape.
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Sinners achieved the victory after earning near-perfect reviews and stellar audience scores.
Not that Minecraft, now in its third weekend, is any slouch as it nears the $350 million mark domestically and approaches $700 million globally. Based on early weekend grosses, it appeared the record-breaking video game adaptation would would stay No. 1 with $45 million. Instead, it’s on course to take in $42 million or thereabouts from 4,032 locations in a double win for Warner’s film empire (family films are always hard to model on Easter weekend because of holiday distractions).
Needless to say, Sinners boasts a strong start for an R-rated, original period genre pic.
All eyes are on how Coogler’s Sinners performs, since the $90 million movie was made entirely by Warner Bros. movie chiefs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy from start to finish. If Sinners continues to impress, the duo can now boast two wins in a row after several high-profile misses that reportedly made Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav consider replacing the duo, even if some of those misses were inherited projects.
Sinners boasts the best Rotten Tomatoes critics’ score of Coogler’s career at 97 percent. It was also graced with an impressive A CinemaScore from audiences and perfect scores on PostTrak. The male-skewing movie is playing to an ethnically diverse audience, with Black moviegoers making up 38 percent of ticket buyers. White moviegoers made 35 percent, followed by Latinos (18 percent), Asians (5 percent) and Native American/Other (4 percent), according to PostTrak.
Set in 1932, Sinners stars Jordan in dual roles as identical twin entrepreneurs known as Smoke and Stack. Having survived the World War I trenches and Chicago gangland, the brothers return after seven years to their segregated Mississippi Delta hometown, Clarksdale. They are flush with cash and have a truckload of liquor and a plan to open a juke joint. However, they encounter unexpected horrors.
“Sinners is the gifted writer-director’s first entirely original feature, not based on real-life events or existing IP, and he packs it with enough thematic layers and genre fluidity to fuel at least three movies,” writes David Rooney in The Hollywood Reporter‘s review.
Coogler burst onto the scene with the indie hit Fruitvale Station before going on to direct Creed and the Black Panther franchise (the latter two both starred Jordan). Sinners cost $90 million to make before marketing, a relatively hefty price tag for a genre movie (Creed‘s budget was $50 million).
Elsewhere, Angel Studios’ Easter-themed The King of Kings is perched in third place. The animated pic about the life of Jesus earned an estimated $17.7 million from 3,535 in its second weekend for a narrow drop of 12 percent after adding 335 theaters to its count. The film boasts a coveted A+ CinemaScore and is playing best in middle America and the south.
Disney and 20th Century’s Rami Malek spy drama The Amateur is holding in fourth place with an expected second-weekend gross of $7 million to $8 million from 3,400 theaters.
A24’s gritty U.S. Navy Seal drama Warfare will round out the top five with an estimated $4.8 million to $5 million from 2,670 sites (in honor of Easter weekend, A24 is discounting ticket prices for military members.) The Iraqi war pic was co-directed by Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza, a former SEAL.
More to come.
April 20, 7:50 a.m.: Updated with revised weekend estimates.
This story was originally published April 19 at 8:38 a.m.
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