Ryan Gosling's Project Hail Mary Opens to $140 Million Globally

Ryan Gosling drew roughly 5 million moviegoers to theaters in Project Hail Mary's opening weekend, generating $80.5 million domestically and $140.9 million globally for the biggest debut of 2026 and the best opening in Amazon MGM Studios history. The question now is whether that momentum can carry the film to the $500 million global threshold analysts say it needs to be a genuine box office hit.

The PG-13 science fiction epic opened March 19 across 4,007 North American screens and broke the studio's previous domestic record held by Creed III ($58 million in 2023) by more than $22 million. Unadjusted for inflation, it ranks as the second-biggest opening weekend ever for a non-franchise film, trailing only Oppenheimer's $82.4 million debut in 2023, and is one of just three non-franchise movies in the past decade to open above $70 million alongside Jordan Peele's Us. Within the space-opera subgenre, it outpaced The Martian, also adapted from an Andy Weir novel ($54.3 million, 2015), Gravity ($55.6 million, 2013) and Interstellar ($47.5 million, 2014).

The film held strongly through its second frame. Project Hail Mary grossed $14.6 million on its second Friday, with Variety projecting a $53.1 million weekend total and describing the 34% drop from opening weekend as "a solid hold." That would push the projected two-week domestic cumulative to $162.9 million. Variety's Jack Dunn labeled the film as "already flexing its longevity as 2026's first major four-quadrant hit."

The international numbers are where optimism becomes complicated. Box Office Mojo reported that as of March 27, the film had earned $162.3 million worldwide, split between $103 million domestic and only $58.7 million internationally, meaning the international share totaled just 36% of the global gross. A BoxOfficeTheory projection from March 20 placed the domestic ceiling at $282 million, which would still require more than $200 million in international receipts just to reach break-even. The Hollywood Reporter later headlined the film as having reached $300 million globally, suggesting continued accumulation beyond the March 27 snapshot.

At the domestic box office, no competitor came close. Disney and Pixar's Hoppers, projected to gross $138 million through three North American weekends on a $150 million production budget, finished second with $3.2 million on the second Friday of Hail Mary's run. Ready or Not 2: Here I Come debuted fourth with $9.1 million for its opening weekend, while the Bollywood sequel Dhurandhar: The Revenge earned $9.6 million across its first three days and Universal's Colleen Hoover adaptation Reminders of Him collected $8 million in its second weekend.

The New York Times distilled the critical consensus in a single headline: "Project Hail Mary Is Fun. Maybe That's All It Takes."

Whether fun translates to $500 million globally is the unanswered question that will define the final verdict on Amazon MGM's most ambitious release to date.