Sinners Has A Fantastic Opening Weekend As Michael B. Jordan’s Vampire Film Dethrones A Minecraft Movie At The Box Office

It’s no secret that established intellectual properties have taken extreme prominence in modern Hollywood. While original fill still get made, they receive far less support and push than projects that already have a built in audience – be they adaptations, remakes or sequels. The obvious reality is that it’s a lot harder to sell audiences something new compared to something with which they are already familiar… but that just makes this weekend’s box office win for Ryan Coogler‘s Sinners all the sweeter.

While Jared Hess’ A Minecraft Movie has dominated in theaters for most of April, the new crime/horror film starring Michael B. Jordan in a widely praised dual role arrived in wide release on Friday, and two days later, it is sitting in the number one spot of the weekend’s domestic chart. Check out the full Top 10 below and join me after for analysis.

Sinners Has Far And Away The Biggest Opening For An Original Movie In 2025

Based on an extremely popular video game, A Minecraft Movie had the biggest opening weekend of 2025 thus far in the first weekend of April ($162.8 million), and while Julius Onah’s Captain America: Brave New World didn’t exactly rock the world when it came out in February, it still put up big numbers in its launch by nature of it being a Marvel Cinematic Universe title ($88.8 million). Now, sitting behind those two IP titles in the ranking of the biggest debuts of the year is Sinners, which can be viewed as a huge win in just about every respect after bringing in $45.6 million (via The Numbers).

Prior to the arrival of Ryan Coogler’s new genre-mashing epic, the biggest arrival for an original movie in 2025 was Lawrence Lamont’s One Of Them Days, which made just $11.8 million when it made its premiere in January. It’s not a common occurrence to see a success like this in 21st century Hollywood – but the horror genre has been a great vehicle, and given his track record including Fruitvale Station, Creed and the two Black Panther movies, Coogler’s name has been established as one audiences can trust for a good time (one can throw the star power of Michael B. Jordan into the mix as a key part part of the equation too).

Sinners has earned widespread critical acclaim, but now audiences are loving it as well. This is perfectly illustrated by the fact that surveys distributed by CinemaScore returned an “A” grade, which isn’t an easy thing for a horror movie to do. Professionals and general audiences are in sync about the greatness of Sinners, and that has now been reflected in the box office earnings.

When it comes to comparisons, it’s unfair to put Sinners side-by-side with Coogler’s Black Panther movies, as we don’t live in a world where the new release was going to get anywhere near the $202 million and $181.3 million opening weekend earnings of those two movies (I already highlighted the effect of the Marvel bump earlier). That being said, it is very much worth noting that the Prohibition era vampire movie has gotten off to a much faster start than Creed did a decade ago. When it first hit theaters in November 2015, the spinoff of the Rocky franchise made $29.6 million in its first Friday-to-Sunday – but it went on to make $174.2 million worldwide.

Sinners isn’t exactly a tiny movie, as Deadline has reported that the production was given a “$90 million-plus” budget, but that investment is going to pay off based on its opening weekend performance (adding what the feature has made overseas so far, its worldwide gross stands at $61 million). Competition-wise, things get a bit complicated in the coming weeks, as theaters will soon see the arrivals of David F. Sandberg’s video game adaptation Until Dawn, Gavin O’Conner’s The Accountant 2 with Ben Affleck and Jon Bernthal, and Jake Schreier’s Thunderbolts*, but positive buzz and word of mouth has led to success for the Ryan Coogler’s film so far, and I anticipate it holding strong in the Top 5 for many weeks to come.

A Minecraft Movie Crosses $700 Million Worldwide

The great success of Sinners is the headline news of this weekend in the film industry, but A Minecraft Movie, aimed at completely different demographics, continues to be a box office blockbuster, and it almost played spoiler to all of the good vibes generated by the Michael B. Jordan release. The R-rated feature made $45.6 million this weekend, but it almost didn’t get the box office crown; A Minecraft Movie very nearly outgrossed it over the last three days, adding $41.3 million to its domestic earnings.

That sum for the video game adaptation starring Jack Black and Jason Momoa is a soft 47 percent weekend-to-weekend drop from the figures that were reported last Sunday. Kids are still going nuts for the film, which is playing in over 4,000 locations around the United States and Canada, and it has made $344.6 million to date (easily making it the highest grossing title in the market so far in 2025, as the second place Captain America: Brave New World completed its box office run just after hitting $200 million domestically).

A worldwide hit, A Minecraft Movie is doing as well abroad as it is at home. Combined with ticket sales in foreign markets, the blockbuster has made $720.8 million to date. As I noted last week, it still sits behind Zi Jiao’s Ne Zha 2 when it comes to the highest grossing films of the year, and it’s unlikely to leapfrog it given that the Chinese animated feature has made about $2 billion to date.

How will the domestic Top 10 get shaken up with the arrival of the aforementioned Until Dawn and The Accountant 2 on Friday? Be sure to head back here to CinemaBlend next Sunday for my full report on the results, and consult our 2025 Movie Release Calendar to plan all of your upcoming ventures to your local theater.