Ryan Coogler's ‘Sinners' resurrects 2025 box office with record-breaking $63 million
On Easter weekend, ' Sinners ' was enthusiastically embraced by moviegoers, adding to the April resurrection of the 2025 box office.
Oakland director Ryan Coogler's powerful allegory of racism in the Jim Crow South disguised as a muscular, sexy vampire film pulled in $63 million globally, including $48 million in North America, in its opening weekend that ended on Sunday, April 20.
The amount exceeded expectations and is the most that an original movie — that is, one not based on another source — has earned during its opening weekend in the 2020s. It is the best start for any original film since Jordan Peele's 'Us' opened to $71.1 million in pre-pandemic 2019.
'Sinners' even supplanted the phenomenal hit ' A Minecraft Movie,' which earned $40.5 million domestically in its third week and cruised past the $700 million mark globally, atop the North American box-office.
'As we continue to strive to bring an array of films to moviegoers, we are thrilled to see how Ryan Coogler's original movie Sinners, and a movie based on the fan favorite Minecraft game, have resonated with audiences in such a stellar way,' Warner Bros. Entertainment chairperson Michael De Luca and CEO Pamela Abdy said in a statement. 'Movies have the power to transport us to worlds only seen on the big screen, and Warner Bros. Pictures remains committed to bringing singular in-theater experiences to audiences looking for bold movies, both original and those based on beloved existing properties.'
'Sinners' might have theatrical staying power, too. It has one more week left in IMAX, and the film received an A Cinemascore — the highest audience-approval rating for an original, R-rated horror movie ever — which bodes well for word-of-mouth success.
On review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, it currently holds an approval rating of 98% among critics and 97% with audiences.
In 'Sinners,' Michael B. Jordan plays a double role as twins who return to their Mississippi hometown wealthy and hoping to open a nightclub, but trouble brews. Hailee Steinfeld and Oakland resident Delroy Lindo co-star. Chronicle contributor Michael Ordoña called the film a 'banger' and said Jordan 'exudes genuine movie-star presence.'
''Sinners' defies convention by taking its time to get to the creepiness and violence. There's genuine care applied to building characters and relationships before sinking its teeth into horror elements,' Ordoña wrote in his Chronicle review of the film.
This latest success makes clear that Coogler is a filmmaker who can draw in audiences. His first four films — ' Fruitvale Station ' (2013), ' Creed ' (2015), ' Black Panther ' (2018) and ' Black Panther: Wakanda Forever ' (2022) — all earned multiple times their budgets at the theatrical box office.
'Sinners' is in Bay Area theaters, including at AMC Metreon 16 in San Francisco, one of eight theaters in the country showing it in 70mm IMAX, and the Grand Lake Theatre in Oakland, which is one of five theaters screening it in 70MM.
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