Box Office: How 'Sinners' Measured Up Among Originals and Horror Movies
As Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan's vampire flick comes to HBO Max, just how well did WBD's leggy "rip off, don't remake" triumph play here and abroad?
As Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan’s Sinners arrives on HBO Max, essentially marking the end of its theatrical run, I wanted to take a quick look at how the Warner Bros. Discovery release measures up compared to its predecessors. Yes, when a $90-$105 million flick earns $365 million worldwide, that’s a pretty clear-cut victory for all invested parties. However, beyond just the obvious (namely, how well it performed compared to the last 15-20 years’ worth of live-action original theatrical offerings), it also notched a milestone or three regarding both horror films (original or otherwise) while debunking some conventional wisdom regarding what kind of films perform best overseas. Simply put, it stands as one of the top-grossing live-action originals *ever* in the unadjusted domestic box office, one of the top-grossing horror movies *ever* in unadjusted global earnings and wasn’t quite as much of a “nobody cares about it overseas” release as conventional wisdom initially suggested.