By Janet H. Cho
Ryan Gosling's heroic space adventure Project Hail Mary overdelivered on its already galactic expectations.
The Amazon MGM Studios' film about a science teacher who wakes up alone in a spaceship light-years from Earth on a mission to save the planet not only delivered a giant weekend at the domestic box office, it rocketed Hollywood's overall box office revenue into double digits over last year.
Project Hail Mary sold an estimated $80.6 million domestically through Sunday, delivering the year's biggest hit so far, according to Comscore. The PG-13-rated movie is also Amazon MGM's best-ever opening weekend.
Comscore's head of marketplace trends Paul Dergarabedian calls it a textbook case of how to launch a movie in theaters. The 4,007 theaters screening the debut presented a homage to United Artists/MGM's legacy James Bond franchise.
Gosling hosted NBC's Saturday Night Live on March 7, giving him a platform to tease the movie, which he said people were describing as " E.T. meets Interstellar," two other beloved interplanetary films.
This weekend's estimated total $142 million in domestic box office through Sunday is up 21% compared with the $75.5 million this weekend last year, capping off four straight weekends of impressive comparisons, Dergarabedian said.
The last weekend in February was up 101% from the prior year and included Paramount's $63.6 million opening of Scream 7 . The first full weekend in March was up 70%, last weekend was up 54%, and this weekend was up an estimated 88% over last year.
In second place, Walt Disney and Pixar's animated adventure Hoppers sold $18 million in its third weekend, bringing its cumulative domestic box office through Sunday to $120.4 million. The PG-rated Hoppers has grossed an estimated $242.6 million worldwide, the year's highest grossing animated film.
Moviegoers Entertainment's crime thriller Dhurandhar The Revenge opened in third place with an estimated $14 million opening through Sunday.
Searchlight Pictures' horror movie Ready or Not 2: Hear I Come debuted in fourth place with a $9.1 million weekend. It's the R-rated sequel to the 2019 film Ready or Not, which sold $57.6 million worldwide, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com.
In fifth place, Universal Studios' romantic drama Reminders of Him sold another $8 million in its second weekend, bringing its year to date domestic box office to $33.2 million and its global cumulative box office to $54 million, according to Comscore.
Project Hail Mary sets up April to be another fantastic month for movie theaters, with Universal's PG-rated animated fantasy The Super Mario Galaxy Movie opening on Wednesday, April 1, Dergarabedian said. The 2023 film, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, raked in more than $1.36 billion worldwide, per BoxOfficeMojo.
Write to Janet H. Cho at janet.cho@dowjones.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 22, 2026 14:25 ET (18:25 GMT)
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