{"id":553319,"date":"2026-03-20T18:09:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T18:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/553319\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T18:09:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T18:09:09","slug":"project-hail-mary-previews-at-12-million-best-of-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/553319\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Project Hail Mary’ Previews At $12 Million, Best Of 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tUPDATED, Friday AM: Previews came in at $12 million for Phil Lord and Christopher Miller\u2019s Project Hail Mary<\/a>. Again, that\u2019s an all-in previews figure, not just Thursday night.<\/p>\n

\n\tAll records listed below still stand from last night\u2019s reporting. In addition, the Amazon MGM Studios<\/a> movie scored the second-best previews ever for a non-sequel, non-franchise, after 2017\u2019s It which did $13.5M. It also beats the previews of some big movies like Mission: Impossible \u2013 The Final Reckoning ($8.3M) and Gladiator II ($6.3M). Buckle up, it\u2019s going to be a fun weekend at the B.O. Project Hail Mary is booked at 4,000 sites including all Imax, PLFs, etc.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn Thursday night Posttrak exits from Screen Engine and Comscore, 61% men showed up and 39% women with 5 stars (as we told you last night), 95% positive score and a massive 85% definite recommend. Fifty six percent previously bought tickets. Fifty-nine percent were between ages 18-34.<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: The 60 Movies That Have Made More Than $1 Billion At The Global Box Office<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tIn addition, Searchlight\u2019s Ready or Not 2: Here I Come<\/a> did $1.2M in previews with a 91% Rotten Tomatoes audience score. The pic is booked in 3,010 theaters including 310 PLF and 150 motion seats. Comps are The Monkey ($1.9M, $14M opening), A Knock on the Cabin ($1.5M, $14.1M opening), Primate ($1.4M, $11.2M opening) and Radio Silence\u2019s own Abigail ($1M, $10.3M opening). The first Ready or Not opened to $8M in 2019 and did $28.7M at the domestic B.O, and $57.6M global off a $6M net production cost.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMoviegoers Entertainment<\/p>\n

\n\tAlso bound to be big this weekend is Aditya Dhar\u2019s Dhurandhar: The Revenge with an expected weekend of $10M-plus. Pic scored the biggest opening day of all-time for a Hindi movie in North America with $3.9M yesterday. The pic is a sequel to last year\u2019s Dhurandhar, which as the highest grossing Bollywood film of all-time in North American with over $20M (and that was off a $1.98M 3-day). That pic is currently available to watch on Netflix worldwide. In part two, Hamza Ali Mazari, whose real identity is Jaskirat Singh Rangi, pursues his undercover operation within Pakistan\u2019s criminal world while tracking down Majo.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe top 5 for the week:<\/p>\n

\n\t1.) Hoppers (Dis) 4,000 theaters, Wk $44M (-25%), Total $102.3M\/Wk 2 <\/p>\n

\n\t2.) Reminders of Him (Uni) 3,402 theaters, Wk $25.1M\/Wk 1<\/p>\n

\n\t3.) Scream 7 (Par) 3,243 theaters, Wk $12M (-46%), Total $110.2M\/Wk 3<\/p>\n

\n\t4.) undertone (A24) 2,570 theaters, $11.7M\/Wk 1 <\/p>\n

\n\t5.) GOAT (Sony) 2,946 theaters, Wk $8.1M (-6%), Total $94M\/Wk 5<\/p>\n

\n\tPREVIOUS EXCLUSIVE, Thursday PM: A non-franchise movie is making waves at the box office and we\u2019re talking about Amazon MGM Studios\u2019 Project Hail Mary. <\/p>\n

\n\tSources tell us that the previews for the Phil Lord- and Christopher Miller-directed sci-fi production are north of $11 million, which takes us to an upper stratosphere that\u2019s ahead of another non-franchise movie, Christopher Nolan\u2019s Oppenheimer ($10.5M). It\u2019s also ahead of all the comps for original pics that many tracking services were pegging it to: F1 ($10M previews), Sinners ($4.7M) and Weapons ($5.7M). Project Hail Mary is based on Andy Weir\u2019s 2021 New York Times bestseller.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn terms of the previews rollout, Amazon MGM Studios had 29 70M shows last weekend (single shows on Friday, Saturday and Sunday), followed by Prime member screenings Monday in PLFs and Imax, as well as tonight\u2019s shows.<\/p>\n

\n\tBefore we bury the lede even further, by golly, it\u2019s the best previews so far in 2026, ahead of Scream 7\u2018s $7.8M ($63.6M opening). Tracking in recent days raised the weekend forecast to north of $60M. Let\u2019s not be over-bullish just yet, because the opening range between F1 and Oppenheimer was $57M-$82.4M. We\u2019re also hearing the production from Amy Pascal, Ryan Gosling, Rachel O\u2019Connor, Andy Weir and Aditya Sood landed 5 stars on tonight\u2019s PostTrak.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn addition, Project Hail Mary reps the best previews ever for an Amazon MGM Studios release, ahead of Creed III ($5.4M, which turned in a three-day total of $58.3M, best domestic start ever for the shopping site-streamer-theatrical embracer). It\u2019s also arguably the second-best previews ever for a Gosling movie behind Barbie ($22.3M).<\/p>\n

\n\tThe best opening for a non-franchise movie belongs to Oppenheimer ($82.4M), followed by I Am Legend ($77.2M); like Project Hail Mary, the latter was based on a novel.<\/p>\n

\n\tTalk to anybody in distribution, and the exclamation is \u201cthis is good for the business,\u201d read, a non-franchise title breaking out and finding a mass audience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UPDATED, Friday AM: Previews came in at $12 million for Phil Lord and Christopher Miller\u2019s Project Hail Mary.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[30862,64,63,134,344,24480,228905],"class_list":["post-553319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-amazon-mgm-studios","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-project-hail-mary","tag-ready-or-not-2-here-i-come"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}