SATURDAY AM: Warner Bros‘ didn’t have a Good Friday, they had a Great Friday with Ryan Coogler’s Michael B. Jordan starring Sinners winning the day with $19.2M and A Minecraft Movie‘s third Friday banking $16M. Penciled out, the Legendary co-production A Minecraft Movie will win the weekend at $45M while Sinners will leg out like a horror movie with $40M, the 11th best opening ever over an Easter frame.

For what we had been hearing about Sinners in the $30M range before a few days ago, this is a solid start for an original movie in period horror, which is a tricky genre at the box office (Focus Features pulled it off with Nosferatu over Christmas with a $21.6M 3-day, $40.8M 5-day). A $40M start for an original movie in a post-strike-streaming-Covid era is to be commended. It cannot be denied that with Coogler, Warner Bros Motion Picture motion picture co-chiefs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy made an excellent movie. Look at these exits: Solid ‘A’ CinemaScore, 5 stars PostTrak, 92% positive, and a massive 84% definite recommend. Men and women over 25 respectively gave the 2 hour and 17 minute running film 93% positive. High scores among diverse groups with Black moviegoers turning out at a huge 49% giving the pic 95%, Caucasians at 27% grading it 91%, Hispanic and Latino at 14% (90%) and Asian at 6% an 86% grade. The under 18 crowd who made it into Sinners gave the movie an A+.

We’ll get into the economics on Sinners in a bit.

After seeing the movie a week ago, I questioned whether a prestige film such as Sinners with its awards patina (great cinematography, production design and acting all around) with its horror bent was better suited for the fall coupled with a TIFF world premiere, a populist festival for moviegoers. We don’t often think of horror pairing with bunnies, peeps, lilies and chocolate. However, a tracking source pushed back, reminding me about the power of Easter weekend, that this was clearly the better date in its access to audiences to launch Sinners versus anytime in September or October. In addition, it was wise that Warners went with A Minecraft Movie in the first weekend of April versus Easter weekend. How’s that? Had A Minecraft movie launched this weekend, it would run into Disney/Marvel Studios’ Thunderbolts* two weeks from now. In the case of Sinners, the movie is counterprogramming to the MCU title in its R-rated sensibility.

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UPDATE, FRIDAY MIDDAY: Warner Bros’ Easter double feature weekend is currently shaping up with Ryan Coogler’s Sinners winning Good Friday over A Minecraft Movie, $18 million to $16.5 million, but the Mojang movie looks to overtake the R-rated Michael B. Jordan movie, $44M–$40M, for its third No. 1 weekend win. Both projections could go higher as the weekend continues, per sources. Some see Minecraft potentially hitting $50M; Minecraft is playing at 4,032 theaters, while Sinners is at 3,308 sites.

It’s the second time that Warner Bros has led the Easter weekend box office in the No. 1 and No. 2 spots following The Curse of La Llorona ($26.3M) and Shazam (third weekend of $16.4M) going 1-2 in 2019. Last night’s turnout by Black moviegoers at 46% indicates good walk-up business for Sinners, especially after the excellent word of mouth, and we’re hearing a high Imax share as well. Sinners is the first release shot with Imax film cameras since Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, and the last until next year’s The Odyssey.

Coogler leaned heavily into Imax in the promotion of the film with a viral video breaking down aspect ratios; Imax premieres in NYC, Mexico City and London; and inviting tastemaker friends Lebron James, Adele, Jay-Z, The Weeknd and Snoop Dogg to screen the film at Imax’s Playa Vista headquarters. Exclusively in Imax auditoriums, sequences in the film visually expand to fill the screen, allowing moviegoers to experience more picture with detail and clarity. 

RELATED: Ryan Coogler Teases ‘Sinners’ Themes And Supernatural Elements Beyond Vampires In His “Personal Love Letter” To Cinema

Social media reach on Sinners was pretty big at 222.5 million per RelishMix across X, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Facebook. That’s higher than the social media universe before the release of comps Us (123M), Nope (179.8M) and Candyman (144.3M, $22M opening). Jordan and co-star Hailee Steinfeld are socially activated with 24M followers apiece. Among the positive reaction online, RelishMix noticed that fans loved how the trailer didn’t give everything away, and they love how Coogler and Jordan are a combo much like Tim Burton and Johnny Depp.

RELATED: Everything We Know About Ryan Coogler’s ‘Sinners’: From The Themes To How It Was Shot

Elsewhere this weekend, third will go to Angel Studios’ second weekend of The King of Kings at 3,535 theaters, with $6M today and $17M in its second weekend. That will take its running cume before Easter Monday to an estimated $45M.

In fourth is 20th Century Studios’ The Amateur with $8M in its second weekend, -46%, after a near $3M Friday at 3,400 sites. Its 10-day total would stand at $28M.

Fifth is A24’s Warfare at 2,670 locations seeing $1.4M today, $4M (-50%) for its second weekend and a running total by Sunday of $16M. The movie will easily eclipse the domestic run of the 2008 Iraq War bomb-squad unit movie The Hurt Locker at $17M stateside, which you’ll remember won the 2009 Oscar for Best Picture.

PREVIOUSLY, FRIDAY AM: Warner Bros’ $90 million+ period vampire movie Sinners chalked up $4.7 million in Thursday night previews that began yesterday at 3 p.m. Out of the gate with preview-night audiences, Sinners gets 5 stars on PostTrak with 80% definite recommend, an excellent exit that could bode well for over-indexing, knock on wood. Rotten Tomatoes is also high on the Ryan Coogler-Michael B. Jordan reteam, with reviews at 97% certified fresh and exits at that level as well.

The diversity demos last night were 46% Black, 30% Caucasian, 15% Latino and Hispanic and 5% Asian.

Sinners in its preview take is under that of genre comps like 2022’s Nope ($6.4M Thursday night, $44.3M opening) and 2019’s Us ($7.4M, $71.1M).

The miracles of Good Friday at the box office, with 72% of K-12 schools and a close to a third of colleges on break, were already in effect last night, with Warner Bros/Legendary’s A Minecraft Movie shooting up in its daily take by 21% over Wednesday with $6.5M, sending the Jared Hess movie past the three-century mark at the domestic box office with $303.3M. A Minecraft Movie pulled off the feat in 14 days, three days slower than Illumination/Nintendo/Universal’s Super Mario Bros which took 11 days to cross $300M. That movie ended its U.S.-Canada run at $574.9M. A Minecraft Movie ends its second week with $102.9M.

One of the two movies will wind up as No. 1 during the Easter holiday frame with respective weekend takes of $40M+. Who can ding a studio for owning the top two slots over a holiday weekend? Good on Warner Bros.

Sinners is booked at 3,308 theaters including premium auditoriums of Imax 70MM, Imax digital, 70MM, Dolby, PLFs and motion seats.

Also opening this weekend is Bleecker Street’s remake of the Ang Lee movie The Wedding Banquet starring Bowen Yang and Lily Gladstone at 1,133 theaters. The movie gets 3 stars from PostTrak audiences and a 50% definite recommend.

The rest of the week is as follows:

2.) The King of Kings (Angel) 3200 theaters, Thu $2.4M (+15% over Wednesday), Total $28M/Wk 1

3.) The Amateur (20th/Dis) 3,400 theaters, Thu $1M (-6%), Total $20.1M/Wk 1

4.) Warfare (A24) 2,670 theaters, Thu $891K (-6%) Total $12M/Wk 1

5.) Drop (Uni) 3,085 theaters, Thu $617K (+2%) Total $10.1M/Wk 1