This weekend, two films produced by Warner Bros. competed against each other in the North American film market. In the end, Minecraft, which has repeatedly broken various box office records, unexpectedly fell behind and ranked second with a weekend box office of 41.3 million US dollars. On the contrary, the newly released original restricted horror film Sinners opened in 3,308 theaters over the weekend and earned 45.6 million US dollars, which was better than expected. It is worth mentioning that for Warner, it is the first time in the past decade that two films have box office revenues of more than 40 million US dollars in the same weekend.
"The Sinner" incorporates references to American history and social reality into the vampire theme.
The Sinner is directed by Ryan Coogler, the director of Black Panther, and Michael B. Jordan plays two roles. On the surface, the film is about the old vampire theme, but the story is set in the American South during the apartheid era, and references to past history and social reality are also incorporated into it, giving it a sense of new wine in old bottles. In addition, Coogler adopted Christopher Nolan's suggestion and used IMAX 70mm cameras to shoot the film, which also makes the film look magnificent.
"The Sinner" has a 98% freshness rating on the film review website Rotten Tomatoes.
At present, "The Sinner" has an astonishing 98% freshness on the film review website "Rotten Tomatoes", and the audience rating of Cinemascore is also A. It is definitely the most popular movie so far in 2025 - no one else. You know, the audience rating of horror movies has always been that getting a B+ grade is already a good result, and A-grade works are rare. Historically, there are only nine horror movies that can get this audience rating, including "The Silence of the Lambs", "Get Out", "The Conjuring" and its sequel, "A Quiet Place 2" and "Five Nights at Freddy's". Therefore, "The Sinner" became the first horror movie to receive an A rating in more than 40 years since the establishment of the Cinemascore rating system - of course, some people also classify "Alien 2" in 1986 as a horror movie, which also received an A rating that year.
Director Ryan Coogler (left) and director of photography Autumn Durand.
The production cost of The Sinner reached $90 million, plus the publicity and distribution costs, it needs nearly $200 million in global box office to ensure profitability. Moreover, this time director Ryan Coogler and Warner signed a box office revenue contract, rather than a more mainstream profit contract. Simply put, the director can take his share of the box office revenue of The Sinner according to the agreement, plus the pre-agreed salary. He does not need to wait until Warner deducts various costs and calculates the profit, and then divides it proportionally from Warner's profits.
Generally speaking, only Hollywood big-name actors can negotiate this kind of box office revenue contract with the film company, such as Arnold Schwarzenegger at the peak of his career, Sandra Bullock in "Gravity", Leonardo Dicaprio in "Inception", Tom Cruise in "Top Gun 2", etc. Ryan Coogler's ability to receive such treatment this time is enough to prove the high expectations of both labor and management for "The Sinner" itself, and the current box office results also indicate that this should be a win-win case. After all, the $45.6 million is also the highest North American opening box office achieved by a Hollywood original film in five years since Jordan Peele's "Us" in 2019 (US$71.11 million).
The new version of "The Wedding Banquet" opened with a box office of only $920,000.
In addition to "The Sinner", new films released on a large scale last weekend also include the new version of "The Wedding Banquet" directed by Andrew Ahn and starring Yang Bowen, Lily Gladstone, Chen Chong, You Ruzhen and others, and the animated film "Sneaks" directed by Robert Edwards. The two works were distributed by independent companies Bleecker Street and Briarcliff Entertainment, respectively, and entered 1,142 and 1,500 theaters in North America, respectively. The final opening box office was only US$920,000 and US$520,000, and neither of them made it into the top ten of the weekend box office list.
The one that made it into the top ten was the 2005 re-release of Pride and Prejudice. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the film's release, and the copyright holder Focus Features arranged for it to be released in 1,393 theaters over the three-day weekend, earning $2.7 million, ranking eighth on the box office list.
"The Broken World and the Future That Cannot Sing" ranked seventh on the weekend box office chart.
In seventh place was the Japanese animated film "The Broken World and the Future Without Songs," which opened in only 800 theaters but earned $2.76 million. The film was adapted from a mobile game featuring the virtual singer Hatsune Miku. It was launched on the U.S. gaming platform at the end of 2021 and has accumulated a large number of players and high popularity over the years.
