Weekend Preview: SINNERS Looking to Keep Top Spot Over ACCOUNTANT 2

Pros

Theaters can look forward to a strong finish to April, with another weekend that looks to be more promising than expected, led by the surprise smash that is Sinners. An original R-rated genre movie with a predominantly African American cast coming out of the gate with a $45M+ debut was already a reason to celebrate, but then Monday actuals shot to $48M over Sunday’s original estimates of $45.6M. Strong walk-up business, premium formats, and stellar reviews are driving sales. At the same time, director Ryan Coogler has proven he’s his own commercial brand, more than capable of delivering hits outside of established IPs. We are expecting a stellar sophomore frame in the high-twenties to mid-thirties, but we could be looking at a number closer to $40M come Sunday if those premium screens maintain their occupancy rates through the weekend.

Cons

Amazing reviews? Massive over-indexing? A likely week-over-week drop well under -50%? We’re seeing very little downside here. It already has a $7.8M Monday (besting event title Mondays for World War Z and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice) and $8.6M Tuesday for a current domestic total of $64.4M which makes it the #1 horror title of 2025. It’s also gunning to easily shoot past last year’s #1 original horror title Longlegs ($74.3M) before the weekend. We could very well see Sinners cross the century mark to $100M+ by Sunday.

Pros

Amazon’s long-in-development sequel The Accountant 2 has all the original components (stars Ben Affleck and Jon Bernthal, director Gavin O’Connor, writer Bill Dubuque), which is always a great place to start when building a franchise. The fact that the first movie has been surging in popularity on streaming is another good omen. Reviews are pretty solid with 80% on Rotten Tomatoes, so expect this one to rock the 35+ quadrants in its debut.

Cons

While the first Accountant movie was a modest hit, audiences might have already gotten their fill of the nerdy assassin thing with 20th Century’s The Amateur, which has already grossed $64.6M globally.

Pros

With $725.66M banked worldwide, A Minecraft Movie‘s next big magic trick will be to cross the $1 billion mark. Can it do it? If it keeps dropping at -50% increments it would in theory make another $50M-$60M or so domestically over the next five weeks, and since international is keeping pace with North America it could be another $60M there for about an $850M haul. However, drops tend to get smaller on titles like this, even as theater counts dwindle (it lost 257 screens last weekend), so the big “B” is not entirely out of the question.

Cons

Sinners may have jumped several million for Monday actuals, but Minecraft went the other way with a Frame 3 take of $40.4M after $41.3M Sunday estimates. As with the last two frame drops, we’re staring down the barrel of another tumble in the area of -50% on this one, which has a rival video game adaptation in Sony’s Until Dawn (no reviews yet, but positive early social reactions) hitting theaters this week.

Pros

Last year’s May re-release of The Phantom Menace did better than expected, pulling in $8.7M Frame 1 to land at #2, ultimately tallying $13.4M total over four weeks. That’s on top of the roughly $44M Episode I made during its 3-D re-release in 2012 for a lifetime total of $1.046B. This week sees the third part of George Lucas’ prequel saga Revenge of the Sith getting a 20th anniversary reissue that has been doing amazing pre-sale numbers and could sneak into the Top 3 by Sunday. Revenge is the sixth highest-grossing entry in the Star Wars series, just under Phantom Menace but above the original 1977 film. Given how front-loaded last year’s Episode I revival was, Sith is getting a one-week-only theatrical release which may boost the need-to-see factor, especially for its debut in the immersive 4DX format plus an exclusive poster by graphic artist Matt Ferguson.

Cons

It’s hard to generate phenomenal excitement for a two-decade old movie which has been perpetually available on every form of home media. Despite initial plans to release all six of the Lucas-era Star Wars pictures in 3-D during the early 2010’s, nothing but Phantom Menace has ever been reissued except during sporadic Skywalker Saga marathons. While Revenge of the Sith ($848.9M WW) did better in its initial run than Attack of the Clones ($656.69M), there is still a certain degree of ill will towards the prequels on behalf of Gen X and older generations who grew up on the Original Trilogy. Luckily for this movie, there is now a younger group of parents who grew up on Episodes I-III that can take their children (who have been exposed to prequel-era characters thanks to current Disney+ shows like Ahsoka) to experience it on the big screen.

Celebrity News