When Amazon MGM began its campaign to become a full-time theatrical movie distributor with a big introductory presentation at CinemaCon, theater owners in attendance told TheWrap that Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s “Project Hail Mary” gave them the most hope for the box office. Now it is time to see if that optimism was well placed.
Based on “The Martian” author Andy Weir’s sci-fi novel, “Project Hail Mary” stars Ryan Gosling as science teacher and biologist Ryland Grace, who is brought into a desperate mission in deep space to find a way to stop the sun from dying out. It is a film that, alongside summer blockbuster “Masters of the Universe,” carries the highest cost on Amazon MGM’s slate with a reported net budget of $200 million after tax credits.
With a price tag that high, opening weekend will not determine the box office fate of this film. It won’t be until the second weekend that we will have any real indication that “Project Hail Mary” has attracted enough sustained audience interest to leg out against “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” a sequel to Universal and Illumination’s 2023 film that became a four-quadrant hit with $1.36 billion worldwide, which opens two weeks later.
The good news for “Project Hail Mary” is that the reception from critics’ reviews and early access screenings have been glowing across the board. With 158 reviews and more than 1,000 verified audience ratings, the film has a spectacular 95% critics and 98% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
While critics are split as to whether the film is better than Ridley Scott’s 2015 adaptation of Weir’s “The Martian” starring Matt Damon, which scored several Oscar nominations including Best Picture, resounding praise has been poured towards Gosling’s humorous and moving lead performance as Grace as well as James Ortiz’s voice and puppetry performance as Rocky, the alien with whom Grace forms the unlikeliest of friendships.
And just like animated hits “Hoppers” and “Goat” before it, strong reviews have led to an uptick in presales. While Amazon MGM is projecting a $50 million-plus opening weekend, independent projections are reaching as high as $65 million.
Since Amazon acquired MGM in an $8.45 billion deal in May 2021, the studio’s highest opening weekend has been Michael B. Jordan’s “Creed III,” which opened to $58.3 million in March 2023 and went on to gross $156.2 million domestic and $276 million worldwide. Behind that is the 2024 Christmas action film “Red One,” which opened to $32 million and grossed $97 million domestic and $186 million worldwide — on a reported budget of as high as $250 million.
As for “The Martian,” that 20th Century Fox film earned a $54 million opening in October 2015 and went on to have strong legs through Thanksgiving, grossing $228 million domestic and $630 million worldwide.
It’s fitting that the last Andy Weir adaptation came from Fox, as that is the studio that theaters are hoping Amazon MGM can replace as a major distributor after Disney acquired 20th Century in 2019. With 15 theatrical films slated for this year and films like a “Thomas Crown Affair” remake and a Denis Villeneuve-directed James Bond film coming in the years ahead, exhibitors are hoping that the deep-pocketed Amazon will help stem the tide amidst the wave of consolidation and rising production costs that have throttled Hollywood’s film output.
But so far this year, it’s been a bumpy start for Amazon MGM. The $60 million-budgeted AI thriller “Mercy” tanked with just $54.3 million grossed worldwide amidst poor reviews. More concerning is “Crime 101,” a $90 million crime thriller that is barely doing better with $67 million worldwide after a month in theaters despite positive reviews. While the thriller starring Chris Hemsworth and Halle Berry got turnout from older male audiences driven by nostalgia for 90s crime thrillers like “Heat,” the under-35 crowd that high-budget films need for box office success widely ignored it.
But a successful theatrical run for “Project Hail Mary” would prove that Amazon MGM can realize its promise to be a major theatrical player. Prior to acquiring MGM, Amazon got its foothold in showbiz with 2010s specialty titles like “Manchester by the Sea” and “The Big Sick,” most of which were released with distribution partners like Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions.
And while “Creed III” provided Amazon with an early hit through MGM following its acquisition, it was a sequel in a series that MGM had already been actively working on with “Creed II” released in 2018. MGM acquired the rights to “Project Hail Mary” prior to the publication of Weir’s novel and Amazon’s purchase of the studio in 2021, but cameras did not start rolling until 2024 once the two companies had integrated.
Effectively, that makes this film Amazon’s first attempt at releasing a tentpole film that theaters can count on to maintain box office momentum. Films like “Scream 7,” “Goat” and “Hoppers” have given the market a higher level of audience turnout over the past month than this time a year ago, when multiple underperforming films left theaters struggling until the “Minecraft Movie” phenomenon ended the March drought.
“Project Hail Mary,” conversely, is hitting theaters as the year-to-date domestic box office total stands at $1.38 billion, 13% ahead of 2025 and just 4.3% behind the post-pandemic leading pace of 2023. If “Project Hail Mary” can clear $60 million and then post a strong second weekend that could make a $200 million-plus domestic run reachable, then the box office will only continue to snowball with the Easter windfall of “Super Mario Galaxy,” followed by “Michael” and “The Devil Wears Prada 2” leading into the summer.
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