Ryan Coogler Does it Again: The Auteur’s Ambitious Epic “Sinners” Wins Box Office Crown

There was a reason why studios were competing to land Ryan Coogler’s ambitious new film, Sinners, when the writer-director and his star, Michael B. Jordan, were shopping the script in Hollywood. Coogler’s earned the respect of audiences across the world, having put out four excellent films in precisely four attempts, beginning with his 2013 breakout film Fruitvale Station and carrying through his subsequent three films, 2015’s Creed, 2018’s world-beating juggernaut Black Panther, and the bittersweet follow-up in the wake of star Chadwick Boseman’s death, 2022’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Warner Bros. eventually landed Coogler’s latest, and their belief in Coogler’s vision paid off as Sinners opened with a very healthy $45.6 million in its opening weekend across 3,308 theaters, including IMAX screens, besting another Warner Bros. film, the record-breaking A Minecraft Movie, to take the weekend box office crown.

Yet even with his perfect track record, Coogler’s ambitions for Sinners, an R-rated, original period supernatural thriller starring Jordan as twin brothers Smoke and Stack returning from World War I to their hometown in Mississippi to open a blues club, only to find something ferociously evil awaiting them there, were massive. Inspired by stories his grandmother told him (Coogler’s family is originally from Mississippi), Coogler’s genre-fluid film might have been a challenge to draw a big crowd on its opening weekend were it not for the goodwill and trust Coogler has earned from audiences. Of course, it helped that Sinners is an excellent, wild film, earning rapturous reviews from critics and great audience scores, meaning that it’s “surprise” victory over box office champion A Minecraft Movie, which cleared $700 million globally over the weekend, will likely lead to strong carry-over into the following weekend and weekends ahead.

“Warner was incredibly supportive of us with this film. I’m so happy we did it there,” Coogler told Deadline in early April. “Part of the deal we had, I don’t want to speak on the specifics, but it was a deal that happened in a competitive marketplace. And while it’s obviously rare, I’m not the only person to have ever gotten a deal like this. I think that the support that they showed the film was great, in terms of us shooting on celluloid…Pam and Mike [Warner Bros. film chiefs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy] advocating for the artistic vision of it, and believing it can be an event; Jeff Goldstein securing the ability for us to have IMAX screens and availability for it to be projected on film prints.”

Coogler bet big on himself, and Warner Bros. bet big that the auteur’s daring vision and his deep love for the cinematic experience were going to win the day. Their bets paid off. Coogler told Deadline that a big part of what he aimed to do with Sinners was create a theatrical experience for viewers that would reward them for seeing the movie in a theater.

“That is a major, major thing that I think matters in how this thing will be seen and received by the public,” Coogler said. “The formats that we shot on Ultra Panavision 70, 276 aspect ratio…these formats were invented, along with Vistavision and Cinemascope, at a time when the film industry was competing with television. They had to have a reason to get people in the audience. We’re going to give you more images, let’s get it bigger. Let’s give them images that look different from the box that they are now watching at home. It is more ironic that we are the first film to be shown in that format, in addition to the IMAX 15 format that was popularized, let’s face it, by Chris [Nolan] at a time in 2008 when motion pictures were competing with peak TV. Before the streaming era, when TV got really fu*king good. Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and 2008 were the turning point, right? That was the time when Chris made The Dark Knight and [Jon] Favreau made Iron Man. When it was, how are we going to get people out of the house when they got all this interesting shit to watch at home?”

“As we continue to strive to bring an array of films to moviegoers, we are thrilled to see how Ryan Coogler’s original movie Sinners, and a movie based on the fan favorite Minecraft game, have resonated with audiences in such a stellar way,” said Warner Bros. film chiefs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy said in a statement. “Movies have the power to transport us to worlds only seen on the big screen, and Warner Bros. Pictures remains committed to bringing singular in-theater experiences to audiences looking for bold movies, both original and those based on beloved existing properties.”

For more on Sinners, check out these stories:

Ryan Coogler’s Big Swing With “Sinners” is Also a Love Letter to the Movie Theater

Ryan Coogler Unpacks the Ferocious Trailer For his Genre-Fluid New Film “Sinners”

“Sinners” Trailer Reveals Ryan Coogler & Michael B. Jordan’s Mysterious Horror-Thriller

Featured image: L to r) MICHAEL B. JORDAN and director RYAN COOGLER in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “SINNERS a Warner Bros. Pictures release.© 2025 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.