Box Office: 'Hail Mary' Eyes Epic Hold, 'They Will Kill You' Murdered
Ryan Gosling stars as Ryland Grace in 'Project Hail Mary.'
Jonathan Olley/Amazon Content Services
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Project Hail Mary continues its out-of-this-world performance after rocketing past the $300 million mark at the global office in its second weekend to become the top-grossing Hollywood title of 2026 to date.
In North America, the Ryan Gosling-led movie adaptation of Andy Weir’s sci-fi novel fell a scant 32 percent to $54.5 million to boast the best hold in recent memory for movies opening in the same range, including Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer (Universal) and Dune: Part 2 (Legendary/Warner Bros.). Nolan’s 2023 pic dropped 43 percent to $46.2 million in its sophomore outing, while Dune dipped 44 percent to $46.7 million.
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That puts Project Hail Mary‘s 10-day domestic cume at an astonishing $164.3 million. Overseas, its total gross rose to $136.2 million for a worldwide total of $300.8 million in a huge win for Amazon MGM Studios. The movie has become the highest-grossing pic since the e-commerce giant took over the once-storied studio after passing up Creed III‘s lifetime run of $156.2 million domestically and $276 million globally.
Opening well ahead of expectations last weekend, the Phil Lord and Christopher Miller-directed Project Hail Mary blasted off with a domestic launch of $80.6 million, the best showing of the year to date and the second-best in a decade for a non-sequel or franchise title behind Oppenheimer‘s $52.5 start. Gosling’s top-grossing film of all time is Barbie, but Project Hail Mary is his biggest domestic opening featuring the actor in a leading role, not adjusted for inflation. It is also a domestic best for Lord and Miller.
Hail Mary is also doing far bigger business than expected overseas, where sci-fi can be an even tougher sell than it is in the U.S., especially in certain European countries and key regions in Latin America and Asia. A week ago, Hail Mary opened to $60.4 million from its first 80 foreign markets for a worldwide bow of $141 million, also the best start of 2026 so far for a Hollywood title. This weekend, it grossed another $54.1 million from 86 markets, a decline of just five percent.n.
Project Hail Mary‘s wit and heartwarming undercurrents are leading to the sort of unanticipated, collective word-of-mouth that comes along once in a blue moon for theater owners and studios. On Friday, for example, the film grossed $11.7 million overseas, up four percent from the previous Friday despite adding more territories, for an international tally of $98.7 million in 86 markets.
The sci-fi epic stars Gosling as an ostracized biologist now teaching high school who is tapped by the head of an international consortium (Sandra Hüller) to help stop the sun from dimming and usher in another ice age. Gosling’s character doesn’t remember any of this upon awaking to find himself alone on a ship hurtling through space. The rest of the crew has died, but he proceeds and discovers an alien life form that is trying to solve the same problem. The craggy-looking alien, who is given the nickname “Rocky,” learns how to use English as their means of communication and the two, working step by step, use their growing bond to solve the problem (the merchandising possibilities are tantalizing, to say the least, should Hail Mary transform into a franchise).
Multiple sources say a franchise is a possibility. Weir has said he has ideas for a sequel to his best-selling novel, but to date, there are no official conversations between the author— who is in the driver’s seat in terms of all things related to Hail Mary — but insiders say a sequel is far from out of the question.
The movie arrives at a defining moment for Amazon MGM, which is on the verge of becoming a major Hollywood studio, just as David Ellison‘s Skydance, which became the new owner of Paramount in August 2025, prepares to add Warner Bros. Discovery to the portfolio. While he says he will keep the two studios separate, no one is sure how that will work. By all accounts, a vertical merger of this size would be heavily scrutinized by Washington regulators, but President Donald Trump is a close ally with Oracle founder and mega-billionaire Larry Ellison, David Ellison’s father. Trump has also praised the younger Ellison and supported the Paramount-Skydance marriage after sweeping changes were made at CBS News. Trump is widely ex