A weekly film and box office newsletter. Howdy, folks! Amazon has much to rejoice about on this fine Monday morning: "Project Hail Mary" is a massive hit. Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller's adaptation of Andy Weir's bestselling sci-fi novel blasted off to $80.5 million this weekend, the biggest opening for an Amazon movie ever, and the biggest opening for a non-sequel, non-reboot movie since 2023's "Oppenheimer." How'd they do it? First and foremost, the creative team on this was top-notch. Ryan Gosling got the rights to Weir's book before it was published and immediately reached out to Lord and Miller, the brilliant minds behind "The LEGO Movie," the "Jump Street" films and the "Spider-Verse" franchise, to direct. Then they tapped Drew Goddard, who got an Oscar nomination for adapting Weir's "The Martian," to handle the screenplay. The book is hugely popular — over 2 million copies of the audiobook alone have been sold — so there was something of a built-in audience here, but the secret sauce to this huge opening weekend had to do with a killer marketing campaign, phenomenal lead performance by Gosling and a dash of Harry Styles. The marketing kicked off last summer with a tremendously effective trailer backed by Styles' "Sign of the Times," which broke a viewership record. The trailers promised a hopeful, science-forward adventure backed by a charismatic Gosling, and Styles' song — which also features in one of the movie's most emotional scenes — became something of an anthem for the film. Gosling and Styles even appeared on each other's "SNL" episodes this month in a bit of cross-promotion. But also key was Amazon's decision to screen this movie for press early. They knew they had something special on their hands, and reviews and reactions — which were almost unanimously positive — have been flooding social media for weeks. The film has a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes. Audiences responded in kind as the movie scored an A CinemaScore and enthusiastic fans have been hitting social media with praise of their own. How high this thing goes remains to be seen, but with reactions like this, the movie can likely expect a long life in theaters. And who knows, perhaps beyond — it was just nearly a year ago that "Sinners" hit theaters to great acclaim and eventually went on to score four Oscars... Adam Chitwood 
Box Office: 'Project Hail Mary' Nearly Matches 'Oppenheimer' With $80.5 Million OpeningAfter a bumpy start to the year, Amazon MGM has its first blockbuster hit since becoming a full-time distributor. “Project Hail Mary,” Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s sci-fi adventure starring Ryan Gosling, earned an $80.5 million domestic and $140 million global opening this weekend. That domestic figure is the second-highest opening for a non-franchise film in the past ten years, sitting only behind the $82 million opening of “Oppenheimer” in 2023. When Amazon MGM unveiled its 2026 slate to theater owners at CinemaCon last year, “Project Hail Mary” was picked out by attendees as one of the films with the most promise. Still, with a reported $200 million net budget before a full-scale marketing campaign and a projected domestic launch in the $60 million range before release, it was looking like the ultimate fate of this tentpole would not be determined on opening weekend. But now... 
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