Polygon.com / 21.04.25

Sinners is a good reminder that we're talking about movies' box office all wrong

Weekend box office reporting is a seminal part of entertainment media. In recent years alone, it has served as everything from a checkup on the general health of movie theaters to a litmus test for each new Marvel film. But recently, box office reporting has gotten a little weird: All the earnings are being reported in terms of budgets and profitability. This used to be language reserved for obvious box office flops movies that cost $100 million or more barely putting up $10 million in their opening weekend, for example. But this past weekend, specifically with respect to Ryan Cooglers fantastic new vampire horror film, Sinners, it became clear that we dont really know how to talk about the box office anymore. Lets get a few things out of the way first: The latest box office report was pretty great for movie lovers and movie studios particularly Warner Bros., which had the weekends top two movies. Sinners was an unambiguous hit, pulling in more than $48 million domestically to earn th...
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