Exceeding both expectations and projections, director Ryan Coogler‘s Sinners had a blockbuster opening this past weekend. The movie out-performed A Quiet Place: Part II‘s opening weekend haul, delivering the number one debut for an R-rated horror film in the post-pandemic era. It’s now passing the $50 million milestone at the domestic box office, and will enter its second weekend of release with a clear goal of passing the coveted $100 million mark. Sinners reunites Coogler with his frequent collaborator Michael B. Jordan, and has emerged as the top-rated film of his already acclaimed career.
Sinners‘ final updated weekend tally stands at over $48 million, which is above the $45 million that it was earlier estimated to have made. Produced on a reported budget of over $90 million, Sinners made over $60 million in its global debut. It’ll recover its reported budget this weekend. The movie opened to ecstatic reviews and an equally enthusiastic audience response. Sinners currently holds a “certified fresh” 98% approval rating on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, in addition to a “verified hot” 97% audience score. It’s the first R-rated horror movie of the post-pandemic era to earn an A grade according to CinemaScore, a platform that is typically quite harsh towards horror fare.
In her review, Collider’s Emma Kiely described Sinners as “an electric film sparkling with energy and passion,” and wrote that “Coogler takes everything he has honed over the past 10 years and crafts a spectacle hoisted up by exceptional visual storytelling.” The filmmaker has now passed the $1.3 billion mark in career box office revenue, and the stage is set for him to deliver his biggest hit outside his two Marvel Cinematic Universe movies — Black Panther and its sequel, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, which made a combined total of over $2 billion globally.
‘Sinners’ Is Being Sold As a Big-Screen Event
Sinners was shot on film stock, and is being screened in select venues equipped with IMAX 70 mm projectors. It’s the first film to receive this kind of release since Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer in 2023. Coogler and Jordan broke out with the indie hit Fruitvale Station, and then leveled up with the Rocky reboot Creed, which has spawned two sequels. In Sinners, Jordan plays twin brothers who return to their Mississippi hometown in 1932, only to invite dangerous foes to their doorstep. The movie also features Hailee Steinfeld, Delroy Lindo, Omar Miller, and Jack O’Connell in supporting roles.
