‘Project Hail Mary,’ box office saving grace

Hello! Welcome to The Box 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 flawless press 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.

3. Dhurandhar: The Revenge

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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5. Reminders of Him

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.

Popculturology is a publication of The Omnicosm.

Issue No. 433

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Popculturology is written and produced by Bill Kuchman.
Copyediting by Tim Kuchman.

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