'Project Hail Mary' flies to $54.5 million second weekend

NEW YORK (AP) — “Project Hail Mary” stayed aloft in its second weekend, holding strongly with $54. 5 million, according to studio estimates Sunday, and adding to the long-term prospects of the year’s biggest hit thus far.

The Phil Lord and Chris Miller sci-fi adventure, starring Ryan Gosling, dipped only 32% after notching the best non-franchise opening weekend since 2023’s “Oppenheimer. ” Amazon MGM’s yet, “Project Hail Mary” has grossed $300. 8 million worldwide in two weeks.

“Project Hail Mary,” which cost nearly $200 million to produce, didn’t face any significant new competition and kept premium format screens largely to itself.

Potentially the weekend’s most watched movie, the KPop documentary “BTS: The Return,” went straight to streaming on Netflix. But “Project Hail Mary” is on an enviable trajectory.

Its second weekend hold was even better than that of “Oppenheimer,” which collected $46. 7 million in its follow-up frame. Meanwhile, the weekend’s top new release, “They Will Kill You,” debuted with a disappointing $5 million for Warner Bros.

The gory R-rated horror film stars Zazie Beetz as a woman who applies to be a maid at an apartment complex where she’s to become a sacrificial offering.

While the result was far from catastrophic for a movie with a modest $20 million budget, it did suggest that theaters may have become oversaturated in horror. David A.

Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm FranchiseRe, noted that there has been a new horror film released every weekend for the last 14 weekends. That included last week’s “Ready or Not 2: Here I Come” ($16.