After a sluggish start to the year, April’s box office rebounded this weekend thanks to the historic performances of Ryan Coogler’s horror smash-hit Sinners and the 20th anniversary re-release of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith.
Sinners, which stars Michael B. Jordan as twins in Depression-era Mississippi, opened to $48 million last weekend, outperforming industry forecasts. This weekend, in its sophomore frame, it earned $45.7 million — a decline of just 4.8%, significantly below the typical 50–60% second-weekend drop most films suffer.
When the weekend’s dust settled, Sinners landed as the seventh-best second-weekend hold in box office history, outside of the December holiday corridor. The end-of-year box office plays by its own rules due to winter breaks and Christmas crowds, allowing for holds that are nearly impossible to replicate outside of the holiday season — for films that aren’t Sinners, that is.
It saw the second-best hold in the horror genre’s history — only this year’s Heart Eyes fared better, jumping 19% over its opening weekend thanks to a well-timed Valentine’s Day holiday. It was also the second-best hold for any film opening over $40 million, right behind Avatar’s 1.8% drop, although the James Cameron blockbuster benefited from its late December release date.
Sinners has torn through numerous Hollywood records since its debut. It’s the best-reviewed horror film in history — the first from its genre to receive an A Cinemascore rating from moviegoers — and it scored the largest opening weekend gross for an original film since Us in 2019, another Black auteur-led horror sensation.
Coogler’s film wasn’t the only standout of the weekend. Far, far away from Sinners’ vampiric horrors, Revenge of the Sith, which charts Darth Vader’s rise and the Clone Wars’ end, returned to theaters with force, opening with $25.5 million domestically and pulling in $43.2 million globally.
Revenge of the Sith, which originally debuted in May 2005, is the latest re-release to make a splash at the box office this decade, following Avatar and Coraline’s returns to theaters in 2022 and 2024 respectively. The Disney-distributed sci-fi epic is on track to eclipse the grosses of both by the end of its one-week run on Wednesday.
The final film of George Lucas’ prequel trilogy notched the third-largest domestic opening weekend for a re-release in box office history, behind just The Lion King’s $30 million in 2011 and A New Hope’s $36 million in 1997, becoming the 16th-highest-grossing re-release of all time in just three days.
The Star Wars franchise has been a major player in theatrical re-releases for over 40 years, earning over half a billion dollars from the limited engagements since the original 1977 film returned to theaters in 1982. The 1997 special edition of Star Wars, when it was retitled with the A New Hope subheader, remains the highest-grossing theatrical re-release with $138.3 million.
The weekend was rounded out by The Accountant 2 and The Minecraft Movie, which grossed $24.5 million and $22.7 million respectively. It was the first time four films each grossed over $20 million in a single weekend in nearly two years, since Meg 2: The Trench and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem opened against the third weekend of the Barbenhaimer phenomenon. Overall, this weekend was up 128% from the same frame in 2024.
It’s a promising sign for movie theaters, which have faced a lack of blockbuster product since the COVID-19 pandemic, despite a growing number of annual theatrical releases.
Between 2010 and 2019, the 10 highest-grossing films each year made up an average of 31% of the annual domestic box office. Since 2020, that figure has jumped to 46.5%, which can cause months-long dry spells for theaters, like the earlier this year when annual box office sales trailed 2024 by nearly 12%.
Thanks to hits like The Minecraft Movie, Sinners and Revenge of Sith driving audiences back to theaters, 2025 now holds an 11% lead over the year prior, with a gauntlet of summer tentpoles on the horizon.