Warner Bros. Ryan Coogler directed/written/produced period horror movie Sinners hit three week tracking today and it’s looking like a $40M-plus opening for the $90M feature production over the Easter weekend. Sinners opens on April 18.
Sinners is solid with men under and over 25 in first choice, higher than Alien: Romulus ($42M) and higher than Mickey 17 ($19M) in first choice. That’s a good thing. Box office sources believe that Warners can potentially even up the opening for the Michael B. Jordan starring movie before the lucrative holiday weekend which the studio has always been a fixture of, i.e. Ready Player One, Clash of the Titans, and last year’s very successful Legendary title, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire ($80M opening).
Similar to the deal that Sony struck with Quentin Tarantino for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Warners brass Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy struck a 25-year license on Sinners, with rights reverting to Coogler after that time. Part of the reason for this was to attract marquee auteur talent back to the Burbank, CA studio in the wake of Christopher Nolan departure to Universal.
