Last Updated on April 9, 2025 by Angel Melanson
It was the weekend that the entire industry was waiting for. Despite having several huge movies open at the box office in 2025 so far, nothing has done enough business to make theater owners and studios cheer. This past weekend though, A Minecraft Movie shattered records with an astonishing $157 million domestic debut. Coupled with its bigger-than-expected haul overseas, the video game adaptation opened to an estimated $301 million globally. That’s unquestionably good news. Even better news? Horror wasn’t totally buried by Warner Bros.’ latest franchise flick.
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One of last weekend’s box office holdovers, Blumhouse’s The Woman in the Yard, held onto a spot in the top five with $4.5 million in its second frame. That represents a 52% drop compared to its opening. That’s not lighting the charts up on fire or anything, but it’s pretty good for a movie with so-so reviews and a relatively muted marketing campaign. Not to mention a pretty tiny $9 million budget. So far, it has made $16.6 million domestically, with an international rollout set to follow.
Even A24’s Death of a Unicorn, which was a decided disappointment in its debut, held reasonably well with $2.6 million in its second weekend after a 53% drop. Again, that’s not great and A24 is going to have to use VOD to make up the difference on this one, but it didn’t fall off a cliff in its second weekend, which is good news. These are, admittedly, somewhat qualified wins.
In slightly less great but certainly not terrible news, NEON’s new comedic slasher Hell of a Summer opened to $1.75 million, landing at number eight on the charts. It opened on 1,255 screens, compared to Minecraft, which opened on more than 4,200. We can’t pretend that a sub-$2 million opening is anything to write home about, but this sort of worked as an alternative offering to a gigantic, PG blockbuster.
The film was directed by Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things) and Billy Bryk (Ghostbusters: Afterlife), serving as the feature directorial debut. It centers on a group of counselors working at a summer camp who begin getting picked off by a masked killer. It’s very much an ‘80s throwback, to be certain. Fortunately, it carries a modest $3 million production budget and was acquired outright by NEON. So it’s not as though anyone is at risk of losing a fortune here. This one will be fine in the long run. It just would have been nice to see it do a little better in the short run.
Heading into the weekend, the domestic box office was down nearly 10% compared to this same point last year. So now, FANGORIA readers might not inherently care about A Minecraft Movie or its success. But to say that the influx of ticket sales was sorely needed would be an understatement. It’s one of those “a rising tide can lift all boats” situations. If nothing else, the horror movies on offer over the weekend served as reasonably effective counterprogramming.
Looking ahead, we’ve got A24’s war drama Warfare, 20th Century Studios’ action flick The Amateur and Blumhouse’s thriller Drop all hitting theaters this upcoming weekend. It’s unlikely any of them will be competing for the top spot, but it could make for a decent weekend overall if the genre-specific crowds turn up. Here’s hoping.
You can see the full list of the top ten movies at the box office for the weekend of April 4, 2025, below. For more, get the latest on A Nightmare on Elm Street and why a new movie hasn’t happened yet.
- A Mincract Movie – $157 million (first weekend)
- A Working Man – $7.2 million (second weekend)
- The Chosen: Last Supper Part 2 – $6.7 million (first weekend)
- Snow White – $6 million (third weekend)
- The Woman in the Yard – $4.5 million (second weekend)
- Death of a Unicorn – $2.6 million (second weekend)
- The Chosen: Last Supper – $1.8 million (second weekend)
- Hell of a Summer – $1.75 million (first weekend)
- The Friend – $1.6 million (second weekend)
- Captain America: Brave New World – $1.39 million (eighth weekend)
