{"id":539180,"date":"2026-03-22T20:25:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T20:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/539180\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T20:25:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T20:25:07","slug":"project-hail-mary-blasts-off-to-huge-81m-box-office-opening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/539180\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Project Hail Mary’ Blasts Off to Huge $81M Box Office Opening"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tOriginal stories finding their way to the big screen are thriving at the early 2026 box office<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tDefying all the odds, Phil Lord<\/a> and Christopher Miller\u2019s Project Hail Mary<\/a>, starring Ryan Gosling<\/a>, blasted off with a domestic launch of $80.6 million \u2014 the best of the year so far \u2014 and $60.4 million overseas for a worldwide galactic start of $141 million in a notable win for Amazon MGM Studios<\/a>\u2018 as it tries once again to become a full-fledged major Hollywood studio. <\/p>\n

\n\tMGM\u2019s successful handling of the film couldn\u2019t be more perfect in its timing as David Ellison\u2019s Paramount-Skydance prepares to merge with Warner Bros., a deal that has left Hollywood reeling over massive job losses and concern over fewer movies getting made that stray outside the bounds of proven properties.<\/p>\n

\n\tThen comes along Hail Project Mary, which joins Christopher Nolan\u2019s Oppenheimer in becoming only the second non-sequel or non-franchise installment of the past decade to open to $80 million or more domestically. <\/p>\n

\n\tIn addition to Gosling, Sandra H\u00fcller also stars in Lord and Miller\u2019s sci-fi epic based on the Andy Weir novel about a science teacher who finds an unusual ally in a mission to save two worlds.<\/p>\n

\n\tProject Hail Mary was looking at a debut of $50 million-plus heading into the weekend, but quickly went into hyperdrive when both critics and audiences<\/a> embraced the warm-hearted, adventure-action movie with rave reviews and out-of-this-world audience polls \u2014 including an A CinemaScore, near-perfect PostTrak exits and a 96 audience ranking on Rotten Tomatoes (the critics score is 95 percent).<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter Project Hail Mary and Oppenheimer, the next-biggest opening for a non-sequel or franchise installment has opened to $60 million or more domestically; Us ($71 million). And excluding those three titles, only two such movies have opened to $50 million or more in the post-pandemic era; Apple\u2019s F1: The Movie and It Ends With Us.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOpenings like this is what makes this business special. \u201cYou could feel how big this film was going to be with the rave reviews from the early screenings and massive presales. Congrats to everyone to who was involved in making this film,\u201d said Amazon MGM domestic distribution chief Kevin Wilson. \u201cAnd it leaves no doubt that Ryan Gosling is a singular star that has the massive global appeal and charisma to anchor a story like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOr, as summed up by THR\u2018s review<\/a>, \u201cRyan Gosling proves he can have chemistry with a rock in thrilling space odyssey warmed by humanity and hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe movie also opened in 82 markets around the globe, including\u00a0the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, Korea, Japan and China. Until MGM builds out its own international distribution system \u2014 believe it or not, that is what separates a major Hollywood studio from other companies, such as Lionsgate, or MGM before it was purchased by Amazon.<\/p>\n

\n\tOriginality is becoming a major talking point of the early 2026 box office. Pixar<\/a>, the storied animation studio that built its brand on telling stories that could play across generations, hit a rough patch in recent times, but its new movie Hoppers<\/a> has seemingly broken the curse. After three weekends, it has become the top-grossing Hollywood film at the global box office with $242.6 million in ticket sales through Sunday. It is also the top-grossing film domestically, animated or otherwise, after earning another $18 million in its third outing for a cume of $120.4 million. <\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s not to say franchises were AWOL entirely from the weekend.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnother strong new player of the weekend is Dhurandhar: The Revenge, the latest installment in the Indian action-thriller starring Ranveer Singh. The pic overperformed to come in in third with north of $10 million.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd Searchlight Pictures\u2019 horror-comedy\u00a0Ready or Not 2: Here I Come<\/a> placed fourth in its North American launch with an estimated $9.1 million for an early global start of $11.9 million after rolling out in its first handful of major markets. The film, directed by filmmaking duo\u00a0Radio Silence\u00a0(Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett), stars\u00a0Samara Weaving,\u00a0reprising her role as the fan-favorite Grace.<\/p>\n

\n\tReady or Not 2 received solid reviews and a B+ CinemaScore iAn North also launched in its first handful of major markets overseas, including the U.K., Australia and Brazil. It will be playing almost everywhere by mid-April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Original stories finding their way to the big screen are thriving at the early 2026 box office. Defying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[12779,2642,32630,3716,88,13771,32632,13774,14069],"class_list":["post-539180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-amazon-mgm-studios","tag-box-office","tag-chris-miller","tag-disney","tag-entertainment","tag-hoppers","tag-phil-lord","tag-pixar","tag-ryan-gosling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}