{"id":503403,"date":"2026-03-30T12:21:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T12:21:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/503403\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T12:21:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T12:21:15","slug":"project-hail-mary-flies-past-huge-sci-fi-franchise-to-become-highest-grossing-film-of-the-year-in-the-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/503403\/","title":{"rendered":"Project Hail Mary flies past huge sci-fi franchise to become highest grossing film of the year in the US"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Project Hail Mary<\/a> is still soaring at the box office \u2014 and has overtaken a major franchise to become the highest-grossing Hollywood film of the year.<\/p>\n

Ryan Gosling\u2019s sci-fi flick<\/a> brought in $54.5 million <\/a>in its second weekend, bringing its domestic gross to $164.3 million and putting it at the top of the United States box office chart for 2026, according to studio estimates Sunday.<\/p>\n

The blockbuster passed James Cameron\u2019s Avatar: Fire and Ash,<\/a> which had dominated the box office for the first three months of the year. The Avatar franchise\u2019s latest installment, which was released in December, has earned $153.7 million domestically so far in 2026.<\/p>\n

Project Hail Mary, directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, has broken several records already in its two-week run. The Amazon MGM film cost $200 million to make and has already grossed $300.8 million worldwide.<\/p>\n

It beat out the weekend\u2019s new horror movie They Will Kill You, which fell flat with a $5 million domestic for Warner Bros. Behind Gosling\u2019s space epic, animated family movie Hoppers remained in second place with $12.2 million in its fourth weekend.<\/p>\n

\"RyanRyan Gosling\u2019s \u2018Project Hail Mary\u2019 has topped the box office for the second weekend (MGM)<\/p>\n

Globally it is the second highest-grossing film of the year, behind the Chinese racing comedy Pegasus 3 which has banked over $600 million.<\/p>\n

Ticket sales for Project Hail Mary only dropped 32% going into its second weekend, meaning its staying power was even better than Oppenheimer\u2019s $46.7 million in 2023. <\/p>\n

Its $80.5 million domestic box office launch also dethroned Oppenheimer for the best non-franchise opening weekend after its global start came out to $140.9 million.<\/p>\n

The movie\u2019s success is a much-needed win for Amazon MGM after a series of flops,<\/a> and it shattered its previous opening weekend record of Creed III, which made $58 million in 2023.<\/p>\n

Gosling stars<\/a> in the Lord and Miller movie as a middle school science teacher who is tasked with traveling to space to save the world. The movie, which also stars actors Sandra H\u00fcller and Lionel Boyce, was projected to hit $65 million at the domestic box office for its opening weekend, but flew past that thanks to positive reviews and trailers shown during the Oscars broadcast.<\/p>\n

\"RyanRyan Gosling plays a middle school science teacher in the new science-fiction movie (MGM)<\/p>\n

The reviews have been mostly glowing<\/a> for Project Hail Mary, with The Independent\u2019s film critic Clarisse Loughrey giving the film four stars.<\/a><\/p>\n

Loughrey wrote that it is \u201can alchemically perfected blend of past sci-fi greats, with a good dose of Spielberg and Kubrick \u2013 familiar without feeling exhausted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next weekend, the film will compete with Universal Pictures\u2019 The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,<\/a> which is expected to have one of the biggest openings of 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-503403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}