Project Hail Mary was also a success for original films not based on decades of IP. Adapted from Andy Weir’s best-seller, the Drew Goddard-penned Hail Mary was the biggest non-franchise opening since 2023’s Oppenheimer, which made $82 million, thanks in part to the “Barbenheimer” bump. Still, Hail Mary’s $80 million start is the best of the year and rocked hard enough to knock Hoppers to number two with $18 million. The Hindi spy-thriller and Modi propaganda film, Dhurandhar: The Revenge, a sequel to 2025’s Dhurandhar, came in at number three with $14 million.
While theater owners were probably glad to have so many new releases in the multiplex, Hail Mary’s success did no favors to the other new domestic release, Ready Or Not 2: Here I Come. The sequel to Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett’s breakthrough 2019 hit made $9 million on 3,000 screens. That’s only slightly ahead of the original’s $8 million opening, which ended up at $57 million worldwide. Looks like all those Scream sequels did little to raise Radio Silence’s profile. Ready Or Not’s core audience is either much smaller than anticipated or quietly decided to go to space with Ryan Gosling. Meanwhile, Reminders Of Him rounded out the top five by adding another $8 million to its worldwide gross.
Here’s the top 10 (per The Numbers):
- 1) Project Hail Mary ($80 million)
- 2) Hoppers ($18 million)
- 3) Dhurandhar: The Revenge ($10 million)
- 4) Ready Or Not 2: Here I Come ($9.1 million)
- 5) Reminders Of Him ($8 million)
- 6) Scream 7 ($4.3 million)
- 7) GOAT ($3.5 million)
- 8) undertone ($3 million)
- 9) Wuthering Heights ($475,000)
- 10) Avatar: Fire & Ash ($275,000)
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