Despite the fact that the movie has been in theaters for nearly two months (not to mention available to watch at home for several weeks already), director Ryan Coogler’s Sinners has, somewhat quietly, continued to kill it at the box office. With this most recent weekend in the books, its ninth overall, it now becomes the most successful original Hollywood movie released in the last 15 years.
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Sinners held onto a spot in the top ten for one final weekend, pulling in another $1.4 million as DreamWorks’ How to Train Your Dragon remake ($83.7 million) took the top spot. More importantly, that brings the movie’s running total to $275.4 million domestically to go with $85.7 million internationally for a running total of $361.1 million worldwide. But it’s that domestic number that we need to focus on.
That $275.4 million puts Sinners past Gravity ($274 million domestic/$723.7 million worldwide), making it the biggest original movie of any kind since 2010. The only movie to make more in North America during that stretch? Christopher Nolan’s Inception ($292.5 million domestic/$839.3 million worldwide). That is unquestionably very good company to be in, especially given that this is an R-rated horror movie we’re talking about.
The one thing that stands out is that most of the original movies that made a boatload of cash over the last 15 years made a whole lot more money overseas than Sinners did. Dating back to its killer opening weekend in April, this movie has been very domestic-heavy as far as ticket sales go, with 76% of its money coming from North America. Why is that, exactly? Did Warner Bros. under-market it overseas?
Theaters in countries like the U.K. added theaters after the opening weekend, suggesting demand was high. Whatever the case, it does feel like this movie’s global number should have been a lot closer to $500 million than $400 million by now. Someone dropped the ball, it seems and the best we can hope is that the movie business at large doesn't make the same mistake again in the future.
In any event, this is a tremendous result for all involved. Especially considering that the movie was also met with near-universal praise. It is instantly a modern horror classic, proves that Michael B. Jordan is a butts-in-seats movie star and cements Ryan Coogler as one of the greatest filmmaking talents of his generation without the need for a qualifier. Sinners is in theaters and on VOD now. For more, get an exclusive look at the upcoming survival/horror video game Cronos: The New Dawn.
