‘Project Hail Mary’ Box Office Buoyed by Positive Audience Scores Across the Board

If there was any doubt, this weekend proved it — “Project Hail Mary” is a huge hit and crowdpleaser of the highest order. The film dropped just 32% in its second weekend, netting another $54.5 million to bring its domestic total to $164.3 million and counting.

It’s the biggest Hollywood movie of the year so far, and that’s a better second weekend hold than “Oppenheimer” and “Dune: Part 2.”

The word-of-mouth performance was borne out after opening weekend audiences had positive reactions across the board — the film got an A CinemaScore and performed best with men over 25 (84% definite recommend via PostTrak), followed closely by women over and under 25 (83%) and men under 25 (81%).

The opening weekend crowd leaned toward men in their 20s/30s (57% male, 26% in the 25-35 age range), but the key here is that, of those who showed up, pretty much everyone logged the film as a “definite recommend.” You can’t ask for better than that.

And on top of that stellar domestic performance, the Amazon MGM Studios film is also overperforming overseas — it brought in $54.1 million from 85 markets. Sci-fi can often be a harder sell internationally, but the charm of Ryan Gosling and deep compassion at the center of the film’s relationship between Gosling’s science teacher and his alien pal Rocky knows no borders. Call it the Phil Lord and Chris Miller secret sauce.

Globally, “Project Hail Mary” now stands at $300 million. It’ll face stiffer competition this week when “Super Mario Galaxy Movie” arrives (it’s tracking for a huge $170 million 5-day opening), but the word of mouth on this one all but ensures it has a long life ahead of it.

Box Office: ‘Project Hail Mary’ Passes $300 Million Worldwide

Amazon MGM’s “Project Hail Mary” scored $54.5 million in its second frame.

By comparison, Warner Bros.’ “Dune: Part Two” earned a $46.2 million second weekend in March 2024 for a 10-day domestic total of $157.2 million. “Project Hail Mary” stands at an estimated $164.3 million through this Sunday and remains on track to pass the $282 million domestic run of “Dune 2.”

The bad news for theaters is that the box office remains top heavy, a major reason why business remains roughly 25% below pre-pandemic levels. The only film to gross more than $5 million this weekend aside from “Hail Mary” is Disney/Pixar’s “Hoppers” with $12 million in its fourth weekend, giving it a total of $138.6 million domestic and $297.6 million worldwide.

After that, three films grossed estimated totals of around $5 million, putting them in a log jam for the No. 3 spot on the charts. Currently expected to take that third place spot is the sole newcomer in the top 5, Warner Bros./New Line’s “They Will Kill You” with a lackluster $5 million launch from 2,778 locations. Reception leans positive with a B- on CinemaScore and Rotten Tomatoes scores of 66% critics and 80% audience.

Earning an additional $4 million overseas, the bloody thriller starring Zazie Beetz will need legs just to post a modest theatrical profit against its $20 million budget. Warner and New Line will look to stronger box office returns over the next two months with Lee Cronin’s “The Mummy” in April and the video game sequel “Mortal Kombat II” in May.

Just behind “They Will Kill You” is Indian action thriller “Dhurandhar: The Revenge” with a $4.9 million second weekend, giving it a 10-day total of just under $23 million that surpasses the $19.7 million theatrical run of the first “Dhurandhar” last year. – Jeremy Fuster

The Spotlight

What’s going on at Row K? Seven months after the distributor launched to much fanfare and picked up projects left and right out of TIFF, the company is suffering cash flow problems and an exodus of its top execs. TheWrap exclusively reports that President Megan Colligan and Chief Marketing Officer Ben Carlson are already gone after clashing with founders Christopher Woodrow and Raj Singh. Read the full story here.

New Releases

What Drew Goddard’s Been Up To: Drew Taylor sat down with “Project Hail Mary” writer Drew Goddard to talk about why he fought for that ending, how the Sony hack scrapped his “Sinister Six” movie and his absence from film.

Sora Out: Why did OpenAI ditch its AI-generated video app Sora, and why is the shuttering likely good news for Disney?

Self-Distribution: Veteran producer Tucker Tooley is ditching conventional distributors for his documentary on the mysterious founder of Bitcoin. Jeremy Fuster spoke to him to find out why.

Play Ball!: The three studios in a bidding war for Tom Hanks’ baseball film “The Comebacker” are Sony, Focus Features and Republic Pictures.

20 Years of ‘V’: “V for Vendetta” director James McTeigue opens up about the cultural legacy of his political sci-fi film.

The Music of ‘PHM’: For an even deeper look behind the scenes of “Project Hail Mary,” check out Casey Loving’s interview with composer Daniel Pemberton.

Concession Stand

Ryan Gosling’s next project is the mysterious new film from the Oscar-winning “Everything Everywhere” directing duo Daniels.

Studios are monitoring the success of Universal’s Black-led romantic comedy “You, Me & Tuscany” before greenlighting more Black-led films, filmmaker Nina Lee says.

Kim Novak does not approve of Sydney Sweeney playing her in an upcoming biopic.

Test audiences made the “They Will Kill You” director soften the violence against star Zazie Beets.

Nearly two years after filming wrapped, we finally have a trailer for David Robert Mitchell’s new movie “The End of Oak Street” — and it’s a dinosaur movie?!

The number of Hollywood films directed by women declined sharply in 2025.

Find out how an original animated movie got greenlit at DreamWorks Animation.

“Wuthering Heights” will be released on Digital on 3/31, with a 4K Blu-ray release on 5/5. 

Streaming Corner

• How big is “Peaky Blinders?” The feature film continuation of the Netflix series, “Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man,” debuted to 25.3 million views — a solid premiere four years after the show ended. Meanwhile, Alan Ritchson’s “War Machine” continues to be a big hit — 18 million views in its third week.
• Netflix tapped “People We Meet on Vacation” star Emily Bader to head up a remake of “13 Going on 30” opposite Logan Lerman, with Bader’s “Vacation” director Brett Haley at the helm. Yes please.

What I’m Watching

The Netflix limited series “Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen” is my new obsession. The horror show from creator/showrunner Haley Z. Boston wears its influences on its sleeve, but the joy is in how it shifts genre every few episodes — it begins as a Lynchian nightmare, morphs into a “Ready or Not”-esque conspiracy horror, then settles into a deeply disturbing relationship drama in the vein of A24’s best. Weronika Tofilska, who directed “Baby Reindeer,” directs most of the episodes here and should find herself in high demand on the feature side now. Some really stunning oners.

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