Maybe it’s because it was Easter weekend or perhaps people are on edge that Pope Francis died the day after a bunch of people went to see a movie called “Sinners” on a holy holiday, but Ryan Coogler‘s original horror film can’t quite catch a break, at least in some spaces.
After staring down weeks of headlines that his movie — a genre-bending period horror film being released in April (not typically viewed as the place for a box office bonanza) and not based on existing IP (what a concept!) — was risky for both Coogler as a director and Warner Bros. as a studio, we seemingly can’t go a day without someone putting an asterisk on its success (or, as was the case for The New York Times, on an actual headline touting that same success).
Online critics of the box office coverage of “Sinners” implied that the media was spinning its opening weekend take in unfair ways. On X (formerly Twitter), Ben Stiller was moved to publicly ask “in what universe” does an original movie that opened to $63 million worldwide and $48 million domestic have to face scrutiny about whether or not it will be profitable after a single weekend in release?
Others suggested some racial bias. Black List founder Franklin Leonard compared coverage of Coogler’s “Sinners” to more glowing coverage of Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” a movie that opened to a similar mark, had a $90 million budget, and also included a contract deal in which rights of the film revert to Coogler after 25 years, not to the studio.
A smartly reported piece in Vulture last week saw rival studio executives raising the alarm about just such a “concession” to a filmmaker, even one as established and respected as Coogler. Coogler himself told IndieWire that such a deal was important for this film because of its subject matter as a story of Black sharecroppers developing Black art and culture. And that, no, Warner Bros. wasn’t even the only studio to offer him the ownership contingency (and, no, the deal is hardly the outlier others have posited it is).
What Warner Bros. should hope the press would point out is that this marks the first time since 2009 that a single studio had two movies go #1 and #2 at the box office and gross more than $40 million in a single weekend. (“A Minecraft Movie” continues to do way better than anyone ever would’ve expected, and it’s already made $717.8 million worldwide.)
If that’s not enough for studio brass, how about some other stories, like how this is the biggest opening for an original horror film since Jordan Peele’s “Us” in 2019? Or that it’s the biggest horror opening for an IMAX film ever? And that it’s in the top 10 all time for IMAX openings, making $9.1 million in North America on IMAX screens, including over $1 million in 70mm showings?
All those are very good things, and the sort of things it would be nice to see better covered by the press, but remember where those box office numbers come from? The studios, the same ones that the aforementioned Vulture article noted are filled with people terrified by the possibility that Coogler’s deal may forever alter how movies are made (and, how they make money off those movies).
Two things are true: it’s a huge overreach to call “Sinners” a bomb and it’s premature to say it’s going to lose money. But why is profitability the only thing that so many people seem to want to judge “Sinners” and its first few days in release by?
“Sinners” was made for a reported production budget of $90 million. When box office pundits try to determine if a film is profitable, they’re doing some back-of-the-napkin math about what a film would have to earn to break even. Production budget is only part of that, and to break even, most number-crunchers then factor in what a studio spends on marketing. The general assumption for that figure: half of the film’s overall production budget, but it varies.
If we were to assume using the usual math then: $90M (production) + $45M (marketing) would mean that “Sinners” needs to earn $135 million to break even. That’s already a tough ask for any R-rated original film.
Then consider that, for any movie, theaters traditionally take half of what a film earns at the box office (again, the share varies for each movie). That means “Sinners” has to make at the box office twice the break-even number — in this case, $270 million worldwide — to be considered “profitable,” though Warner Bros.’ own internal numbers are likely very different.
Let’s look at some comps. Peele’s “Us,” made for just $20 million, opened way higher at $71.1 million and topped out at $256 million worldwide. Peele’s third film “Nope” opened similarly to “Sinners,” making $44.3 million (which also included an IMAX release), finishing at $171 million against a $68 million budget. “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” opened to only $41 million but really legged out to $392 million worldwide. (Of note: that film made almost two-thirds of its haul internationally, while horror films tend to do better stateside.)
While it’s harder to gauge internationally, movies like “Us” and “Nope” domestically finished with roughly 2.5 times more than what they opened to. If “Sinners” did the same, it would be in the ballpark of $120 million domestic, giving it a good chance of reaching $200 million globally. That could be seen as a letdown if that’s where it ends up.
But “Sinners” has some great word of mouth. Critics love it — it has a 98 percent Rotten Tomatoes score — and so do audiences, who gave it a 97 percent score. It got an “A” CinemaScore grade and even an A+ from the valuable under 18 demo.
Warner Bros. also says it’s tracking ahead of movies like “Nope” internationally, suggesting it could have a longer runway abroad. In the coming weeks, it won’t have major competition on traditional or premium large format (PLF) screens until “Thunderbolts” opens in May, so it can still command a lot of additional revenue from IMAX.
Comscore senior analyst Paul Dergarabedian told IndieWire he’ll be looking closely at the film’s midweek grosses and how it drops off into weekend two, noting that the word of mouth is strong enough that it has the chance to work toward a much higher domestic multiple.
“It ain’t over,” Dergarabedian told IndieWire. “It has a path to greater profitability, but this isn’t just a one-weekend play. Horror movies, they used to kill on Friday and die on Saturday.”
Dergarabedian suspects that, despite its premium formats, it’s likely Coogler’s film does very well on the small screen. When “Sinners” eventually opens on PVOD, studios get a much higher share of the revenue on purchases or rentals than they would from movie theaters, and studios are often playing the long game between theaters, PVOD, subscription streaming, and other licensing before seeing something truly make its way out of the red.
But “Sinners” was singled out because it’s the latest expensive and ambitious passion project from a big name filmmaker that Warner Bros. has released. “Joker: Folie á Deux,” “Mickey 17,” and “The Alto Knights” all struggled (or outright bombed) and put the spotlight on WB film chiefs Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy, especially when they have Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Bride!” still to come.
But Coogler is an interesting case and likely doesn’t deserve to be in that group. He’s an auteur, but he’s also made his career on the biggest IP around, with “Black Panther” and “Creed.” He’s a commercial hitmaker who makes movies that resonate with pop culture. So far, “Sinners” has passed those tests with flying colors. More money can’t be far behind.
