There’s already excellent word of mouth for Amazon MGM Studios‘ sci-fi dramedy, Project Hail Mary, with a 98% Rotten Tomatoes audience score and 95% certified fresh from critics.
The global outlook is around $100M+ with a 90% offshore footprint or 82 markets. North America is looking to land $60M+ at 4,000 theaters, and there are some who believe that the Ryan Gosling movie could even travel to a bigger atmosphere. Project Hail Mary‘s prayers for all the big auditoriums have already been answered with the pic showing in Imax, PLFs, D-Box, etc.
Comps are tough for this story about a junior high science teacher whose forced into a covert government assignment and finds himself at the other end of our universe. Though based on the New York Times Andy Weir bestselling novel (he’s the same author who was behind 20th Century Fox’s The Martian), it’s been a while since we’ve had a non-franchise sci-fi title of this nature. Everyone keeps going back to Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar which was released in a whole other universe that included a booming China cinematic market ($139.2M reported final), healthy Korean ($58.7M final reported gross) and solid Russia ($19M). Interstellar posted a 5-day of $49.6M domestic, and finaled during its initial release at $188M U.S./Canada and $493M overseas for a global of $681M (re-issues have taken the pic to final of $203.2M domestic, $773.8M WW). Weir’s The Martian, starring Matt Damon and directed by Ridley Scott, opened to $54.3M domestic.
Really, even if tracking is massively off, and Project Hail Mary falls back to a $50M opening in North America, va bene. Really. Exhibition is in store for a significantly richer weekend versus a year ago when Snow White (underwhelming $42.2M opening) led all titles to a $74.4M overall 3-day marketplace.
Yes, Amazon MGM Studios makes expensive movies, and this Phil Lord and Chris Miller directed and produced, and Amy Pascal, Rachel O’Connor, Aditya Sood, Weir and Gosling produced feature cost a net $190M. Profitability aside for now for the trillion-dollar Amazon, but Project Hail Mary is bound to be their biggest opener both domestic, besting 2023’s Creed III ($58.3M) and global ($100.4M reported) start. If Amazon can make their global marketing spend back on a movie, then it’s deemed worthy of a theatrical release.
Project Hail Mary held stateside previews in 29 70MM locations (single shows) last weekend. Those sold out. Then there was a Prime Early access screening on Monday in PLFs and Imax. That cash will be rolled up into the preview money tonight (showtimes started a little while ago at 2:45PM). Amazon MGM Studios was very confident about the movie, screening to the media as early as Feb. 23, close to a month in advance. They’ve began tubthumping the movie at CinemaCon last April with the first footage shown. This segued to San Diego Comic-Con last July where the Drew Goddard adapted title took over Hall H’s surround screens at the city’s conference center. It was then that the first trailer was dropped to 400M+ views, the biggest launch ever for a non-franchise / non-sequel film, while partnerships with Audible helped drive Andy Weir’s novel back to the top of The New York Times and Audible bestseller charts.
Abroad, Project Hail Mary is going in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, Korea, Japan, and China in this suite. Spain, Israel, Philippines, India and Malaysia are going later. Sony is handling the foreign release on this as Amazon MGM Studios builds out its own foreign distribution arm. The one concern about grosses remains in the Middle East due to the ramifications from the Iran war. If you minus the Russia, Korea, and China potential of days gone by, then Project Hail Mary could emulate Interstellar. The familiarity with the book is mostly a U.S./Canada thing, though great word of mouth and a comedic Gosling goofing off in space is bound to translate in Europe and LatAm. Asian markets are a wait and see, given how U.S. titles have been underperforming in the region post Covid.
Searchlight’s Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, was another movie that screened early for press, roughly two weeks in advance of its world premiere last Friday at SXSW. The R-rated horror sequel is eyeing an $11M start stateside at 3,000 theaters with another $3M overseas from 30% offshore footprint. Total WW debut is $14M. We hear domestic previews are around $1M so far, pointing to a low eight-figure opening. The first Radio Silence (Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettiinelli-Olpin) directed movie in late August 2019 bowed to $8M and did a 3x-plus multiple for a final domestic of $28.7M and global of $57.6M off a $6M production cost and launched Austrian actress Samara Weaving (and Radio Silence) to the world. Part two stars more stars in Sarah Michelle Gellar, Elijah Wood and Kathryn Newton as the sister to Weaving’s Grace MacCaullay.
So far reviews at 74% fresh are lower than the original’s 89% certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Fingers grossed for overindexing as the sequel had the biggest trailer launch in the history of Searchlight Pictures with 68M views in its first 24 hours.
Ready or Not‘s original scribes Guy Busick and R. Christopher Murphy cracked the sequel: Moments after surviving an all-out attack from the Le Domas family, Grace discovers she’s reached the next level of the nightmarish game — and this time with her estranged sister Faith (Kathryn Newton) at her side. Grace has one chance to survive, keep her sister alive, and claim the High Seat of the Council that controls the world. Four rival families are hunting her for the throne, and whoever wins rules it all.