There’s no accounting for the power of word of mouth.
Graced with virtually perfect audience scores and the best reviews of filmmaker Ryan Coogler‘s already acclaimed career, Sinners has transformed into the rare title that becomes an instant water-cooler sensation.
The period supernatural vampire pic starring Michael B. Jordan opened to a better-than-expected $48 million over Easter weekend to topple fellow Warner Bros.’ event pic A Minecraft Movie after the former ruled the roost for two consecutive weekends.
Sinners, buoyed by an ethnically diverse audience, has added another $23 million since Monday for a domestic total of $71.5 million through Wednesday. Its Monday haul was an impressive $7.8 million, followed by $8.6 million on discount Tuesday and another $7.1 million on Wednesday. Those are huge numbers for an R-rated genre movie and, again, speak to powerful word-of-mouth.
This weekend, Sinners will go up against Amazon MGM’s The Accountant 2. Both R-rated films are expected to take in $20 million to $25 million, and will compete for males.
The first Accountant, released by Warners, opened to $24.7 million in 2016 on its way to grossing $155.5 million globally and becoming the most-rented digital film in 2017, according to Amazon MGM.
Reuniting Affleck and director Gavin O’Connor, Accountant 2 currently sports a fresh 75 percent critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, compared to a rotten 53 percent for the first film.
The actor produced the sequel via his and Matt Damon’s Artists Equity, alongside Lynette Howell Taylor for 51 Entertainment and Mark Williams for Zero Gravity Management. The film made its world premiere at SXSW last month, winning the audience Award for the Headliners section.
Jon Bernthal, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Daniella Pineda, Allison Robertson and J.K. Simmons co-star in Accountant 2, which sees Affleck’s character compelled to step in when and help solve the murder of an old acquaintance with the help of his estranged brother and a U.S. Treasury agent. Together, they uncover a deadly conspiracy, becoming targets of a ruthless network of killers who will stop at nothing to keep their secrets buried.
Accountant 2 is hosting Thursday previews before opening officially on Friday.
