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 $100 million+ 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 the Ryan Gosling movie could travel to an even bigger stratosphere. Project Hail Mary‘s prayers for all the big auditoriums have been answered with the pic showing in Imax, PLFs, D-Box, etc.
Comps are tough for this story about a junior high science teacher who’s forced into a covert government assignment and finds himself at the other end of our universe. Although it’s based on the New York Times bestselling novel by Andy Weir — the same author behind 20th Century Fox’s The Martian — it’s been awhile since we’ve had a non-franchise sci-fi title of this nature. Everyone keeps going back to Christopher Nolan’s 2014 pic Interstellar, which was released in a whole other universe that included a booming cinematic markets in China ($139.2M reported final), Korea ($58.7M final reported gross) and Russia ($19M). Interstellar posted a five-day total of $49.6M domestic and finaled during its initial release at $188M U.S.-Canada and $493M overseas for a global of $681M (reissues have taken the pic to $203.2M domestic, $773.8M WW). Weir’s The Martian, starring Matt Damon and directed by Ridley Scott, opened to $54.3M domestic in 2015.
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 three-day marketplace.
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Yes, Amazon MGM Studios makes expensive movies, and this feature cost a net $190M. Profitability aside for now for the trillion-dollar Amazon, but Project Hail Mary is bound to be its biggest opener, besting the start for 2023’s Creed III in both domestic ($58.3M) and global ($100.4M reported). If Amazon can make its global marketing spend back on a movie, then it’s deemed worthy of a theatrical release.
Directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller (who also produced alongside Amy Pascal, Rachel O’Connor, Aditya Sood, Weir and Gosling), 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 at 2:45 p.m.).
Amazon MGM was very confident about the movie, screening to the media as early as February 23, close to a month in advance. It began tubthumping at CinemaCon last April with the first footage shown. This segued to San Diego Comic-Con in July, when the Drew Goddard-adapted title took over Hall H’s surround screens at the city’s conference center. That was when 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 Weir’s novel back to the top of 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 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, 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.
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Searchlight’s Ready or Not 2: Here I Come is another movie that screened early for press, roughly two weeks in advance of its world premiere Friday at SXSW. The R-rated horror sequel is eyeing an $11M start stateside at 3,000 theaters with another $3M overseas from a 30% offshore footprint. Total worldwide debut is $14M. We hear domestic previews are around $1M so far, pointing to a low-eight-figure opening.
The first movie, directed by Radio Silence (Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettiinelli-Olpin), bowed to $8M in late August 2019 and did a 3x-plus multiple for a final domestic of $28.7M and global of $57.6M off a $6M production cost; it also launched Australian actress Samara Weaving (and Radio Silence) to the world. Part 2 features 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% on Rotten Tomatoes. Fingers crossed for overindexing as the sequel had the biggest trailer launch in the history of Searchlight Pictures with 68M views in its first 24 hours.
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Ready or Not‘s original scribes Guy Busick and R. Christopher Murphy cracked the sequel. The logline: Moments after surviving an all-out attack from the Le Domas family, Grace (Weaving) discovers she’s reached the next level of the nightmarish game — and this time with her estranged sister Faith (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.
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