What Box-Office Milestones Could Sinners Still Stake Through the Heart?

Ryan Coogler’s Sinners has already proven itself a box-office killer — its second weekend made $45 million domestically, just 6 percent lower than its $48 million opening weekend. The film’s worldwide gross is officially at $161 million. While that’s already a huge sum, it seems safe to say that the movie isn’t anywhere near done making money, given the low drop-off. And it’s especially great for a completely original, non-franchise movie that’s rated R: not exactly the template for success in these IP-based times. Below, the milestones Sinners could still surpass in the coming weeks. Take a bite, why don’t ya?

Saintly

Sinners only needs to make about $10 million more at the box office globally to surpass $170 million, which is the total needed to recoup its upfront costs, an industry insider told Vulture (including budget, along with prints and advertising). Now, that number notably factors in video on demand as well as the network broadcast window, but still — that’s an almost guaranteed win for the film.

Fun bad

To date, Sinners’s total domestic gross sits at $123 million when all days are factored in, per Box Office Mojo. That could put it within striking distance of Captain America: Brave New World in the 2025 domestic box-office totals, since that movie made $200 million domestically. If it displaces CA:BNW in the domestic box office, that will make Sinners the current silver medalist in U.S. box office for all of 2025 — potentially a short-lived win with upcoming heavy hitters like Thunderbolts* and Superman, but a win nonetheless.

Deliciously evil

Then, Sinners can start breaking more guitars records. If it makes at least $218 million worldwide, it’d the highest-grossing original horror movie since Jordan Peele’s 2019 modern classic Us, beating out the 2022 breakout hit Smile. To beat Us, Sinners will have to make $256 million worldwide. At this point, that could be achievable — Us’s first $71 million domestic weekend beats Sinners’s opening weekend, but that movie fell to $33 million by its second weekend. If Sinners does beat Us, that would make it the highest-grossing original horror movie since 2018’s A Quiet Place, which made $341 million globally.

Sinfully decadent

Okay, let’s reach for the stars, shall we? If Sinners wants to become the highest-grossing horror movie of the decade, it will have to top Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, which made $451 million worldwide. And if it wants to become the highest-grossing original horror movie of all time, it will just have to beat out a little movie called The Sixth Sense, which grossed $672 million — and if it gets to that point, it might as well aim to be the highest-grossing horror movie ever, meaning it would have to make $705 million to beat It. And if it wants to beat Coogler’s record, all it has to do is beat [Checks notes] the $1.35 billion Black Panther brought in. Look, it’s still doing great!

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