‘Sinners’ puts a stake in its box office competition

Hello! Welcome to The Box Office Report for the weekend of April 25-27, 2025.

1. Sinners

Weekend gross: $45M
Total domestic gross: $122.5M
Last weekend: 1st
Percent drop: 6

Six percent. Six. Percent.

That’s all Sinners dropped from its debut last weekend to this weekend. That’s virtually unheard of for a standard release like Ryan Coogler’s latest film. MCU movies tend to drop between 60 and 70 percent these days.

With Popculturology being on break last weekend, I missed Sinners snagging the No. 1 spot with a fantastic $48 million debut. I wasn’t expecting to be here this weekend talking about a $45 million second weekend.

I saw Sinners on Saturday night. My original plan was to catch a near-soldout screening at the massive IMAX screen at the Air and Space Museum in Virginia, but I had to shift gears to a basic AMC screening after a mysterious technical difficulty scuttled my IMAX viewing. My second hunt for a showing on Saturday evening showed me that, yes, Sinners was absolutely packing theaters once again.

Sinners has jumped out to a domestic haul of $122.5 million through these two weekends, easily becoming the biggest box office hit for Coogler that isn’t a Black Panther movie. (The original Black Panther grossed $700.1 million in North America and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever followed with $453.8 million.)

Speaking of the MCU, Coogler delivering a masterpiece with Sinners while Marvel Studios hands the keys to the Avengers movies back to the dudes who keep delivering lukewarm streaming movies is an odd dichotomy. Maybe Coogler was never interested in helming those movies — but I hope Kevin Feige at least asked.

• 📖 The reaction to Sinners' opening lays bare the racial bias around Black blockbusters (Craig D. Lindsey, The AV Club): “Usually, a film that has a great debut like Sinners would get some celebratory coverage from the trades and online sites. But, even though it’s another certified blockbuster that’s keeping the lights on at Warner Bros. (Minecraft is also a WB picture), some outlets have been downplaying its obvious success.”

2. Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith

Weekend gross: $25.2M
Total domestic gross: $405.5M
Last weekend: Re-release
Percent drop: NA

OK, so it isn’t technically twenty years since Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith hit theaters until later in May, but Disney re-released what was in 2005 the final Star Wars movie this weekend. I thought about seeing it but figured I should go with Sinners instead after missing it last weekend.

Seeing Revenge of the Sith the Thursday night it came out is one of my favorite movie memories. I was closing at CVS that night, so my friends picked me up immediately after I got out. There were no assigned seats in 2005, so we got in line at the Regal in Henrietta, New York — which is now gone — and watched it become the longest line I’ve ever seen. It stretched out from the Regal and into the parking lot of the plaza next door. Local pizza places started sending workers over to sell food to people in line.

Here’s to Revenge of the Sith for scoring a $25.2 million weekend twenty years later, enough to bump the film up past the $400 million mark in North America. Hopefully there’s a future where we actually get to see a new Star Wars movie in theaters again.