Ryan Gosling and a puppet alien blew away expectations and soared to one of the best debuts for a non-sequel/non-franchise film in over a decade with an $80.6M weekend.
Ryan Gosling and a puppet alien blew away expectations and soared to one of the best debuts for a non-sequel/non-franchise film in over a decade with an $80.6M weekend.
Hello! Welcome to TheBox Office Report for the weekend of March 20-22, 2026.
1. Project Hail Mary
Weekend gross: $80.6M Total domestic gross: $80.6M Last weekend: New release Percent drop: NA
What a weekend for Project Hail Mary. Going into its opening weekend, the adaptation was tracking for a debut above $50 million — and it blew that projection away. Project Hail Mary opened with $80.6 million in North America. This is easily the biggest first weekend for any film opening in 2026, passing Scream 7’s $63.6 million and Hoppers $45.3 million.
I feel like it’s been awhile since we’ve seen a film take off like Project Hail Mary. Sure, movies have performed above their tracking, but in the post-pandemic era, this kind of moment is rare. We went into the weekend with a hunch that Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s adaptation would do well, but no one predicted Project Hail Mary would do this well.
Ryan Gosling has run a pretty flawlesspress tour for Project Hail Mary, and combined with glowing reviews and pretty stellar word of the mouth, the film scored one of the best opening weekends for a non-sequel, non-franchise film in a long time.
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2. Hoppers
Weekend gross: $18M Total domestic gross: $120.4M Last weekend: 1st Percent drop: 37
Hoppers continues to show remarkable strength, falling just 37 percent between its second and third weekends, matching last weekend’s drop. An $18 million third weekend brings the animated film’s domestic total to $120.4 million.
This weekend’s haul inches Hoppers past Lightyear ($120.4 million) and puts it within sight of The Good Dinosaur ($123.1 million) on Pixar’s domestic box office ranks.
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Weekend gross: $9.6M Total domestic gross: $13.5M Last weekend: New release Percent drop: NA
I’m unfamiliar with the Dhurandhar franchise, but that doesn’t mean the rest of you weren’t. The Indian film outperformed Ready or Not 2: Here I Come to score the No. 3 spot on the North American box office chart.
4. Ready or Not 2: Here I Come
Weekend gross: $9.1M Total domestic gross: $9.1M Last weekend: New release Percent drop: NA
Ready of Not 2: Here I Come opened at No. 4, but the sequel still outperformed the opening weekend of its predecessor. Ready or Not debuted with $8 million back in August 2019. That film’s opening weekend numbers are a bit skewed though, as the first Ready or Not opened on a Wednesday and already had a few million in its coffers before it hit the weekend.
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Weekend gross: $8M Total domestic gross: $33.2M Last weekend: 2nd Percent drop: 56
Reminders of Him stayed in the top five this weekend, but it would be an understatement to say that it failed to live up to the box office performance of It Ends With Us, another recent adaptation of a Colleen Hoover book. Reminders of Him’s entire box office gross has yet to even match It Ends With Us’s $50 million opening weekend.
Beyond the Top Five
Scream 7: Even before a $4.3 million fourth weekend in theaters, Scream 7 had already notched the distinction of being the biggest domestic hit for the entire Scream franchise, passing Scream VI’s $108.4 million North American haul.
Box office numbers via Box Office Mojo based on Sunday estimates.
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The Omnicosm founder. Snackology, Popculturology and The Cold Open writer. A Rochester, N.Y., native now living in the Washington, D.C., area. Won’t pass up a Genny Cream Ale.
Ryan Gosling and a puppet are my new favorite duo. PLUS: The first trailers for ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ and ‘Dune: Part Three,’ ‘Maul: Shadow Lord’ looks great, and is Conan O’Brien an Oscar host for life?
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