Summary

Sinners dominated the box office, breaking R-rated horror records with a $45.6 million North American debut.
The film stars Michael B. Jordan as twin brothers and has received critical acclaim, boasting a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
While Sinners is on track to be profitable, it needs to reach $180 million to break even due to its $90 million budget.

Didn’t think a vampire could dominate the box office since the Twilight Saga ended years ago? Think again! Ryan Coogler’s Sinners debuted in sync with previous predictions, topping the U.S. Box office's Easter holiday and breaking R-rated horror records in the process.

Warner Bros.’ Sinners is an R-rated vampire horror-thriller directed by Coogler and stars Michael B. Jordan—in a dual role as twin brothers Smoke and Stack—Hailee Steinfeld, Jack O'Connell, Delroy Lindo, Li Jun Li, and Wunmi Mosaku. Set in the 1930s American South, the film follows the brothers who return home to establish a juke joint only for their community to be blindsided by a terrifying vampire invasion. Critics and audiences alike approve of Sinners, giving it a 98% average on Rotten Tomatoes and an A on Cinemascore while bathing it with good word of mouth. Reviews have called it a thematically rich, visually stunning vampire tale, with standout performances, a hauntingly immersive blues score by Ludwig Göransson, and Coogler’s masterful direction for good measure.

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By Catherine Armecin Martin

Sinners' Opening Weekend Broke Records For An Original Horror Film

It Also Ousted A Minecraft Movie From the Top Spot

Industry analysts were cautious with their projections on Sinners, estimating a $35 - $45 million three-day domestic debut and $15 - $20 million overseas, even as the movie’s pre-sales stood shoulder to shoulder with Bad Boys: Ride or Die and Creed 3. And indeed, its domestic opening sat on the higher end. Per Box Office Mojo and Deadline data, Sinners opened with $45.6 million in North America and $15.6 million from 71 overseas markets. Not only was this enough to oust A Minecraft Movie ($41.3 million) as the highest-grossing movie of the weekend at the U.S. Box office, it also granted the Coogler film the second-strongest domestic debut for an original horror film, narrowly beating Jordan Peele’s Nope ($44.4 million). Peele still tops the bunch with US, which opened with $70.3 million in 2019.

As the fifth Coogler-Jordan combo, Sinners was always guaranteed to move mouths and be commercially viable, as history has proven. Fruitvale Station grossed $17.4 million in 2013 on a $900,000 production budget; Creed took in $173.6 million in 2015, costing $40 million to make; and both Black Panther movies collectively grossed more than $2.1 billion. Add to this an unprecedented A on Cinemascore for an R-rated horror — above A Quiet Place, Five Nights At Freddy's, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Get Out, Nope, and M3gan — and the stars couldn’t align any better for stakeholders.

Be that as it may, at $61 million globally on a $90 million price tag, the job is just half done…or two-thirds to be precise. Hollywood mathematics dictate that Sinners would have to finish with at least $180 million to break even. It’s not the ride-in-the-park that some want to make it seem, though. In the coming weeks, Sinners will have to share the spoils with A Minecraft Movie, already on a pathway to billion-dollar glory with its current three-week tally of $720 million, and a Marvel tentpole in Thunderbolts*. Plus, unless it's a major franchise, horror films tend to perform modestly overseas, so don’t count on them to do the heavy-lifting .

It won’t be until next weekend, when second-weekend drop-offs come into view, that a clearer picture of Sinners' box office legs can be drawn. Until then, the prevailing assumption is that the film is poised to be a profitable venture for Warner Bros.

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