box office never fully recovered from the pandemic shutdown five years ago, with some highs along the way but far more lows to complicate matters. Fortunately, things have looked up lately, with “A Minecraft Movie” delivering a global smash. And here’s some more good news: This past weekend was, without a doubt, one of the most important and encouraging weekends at the box office in years.
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The last weekend of April 2025 saw Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” make more than $45 million in its second weekend, a record-low drop for a wide release horror movie. It has now become an unexpectedly huge, original smash hit. What’s special about it, looking beyond the number one movie on the charts, is that Coogler’s latest didn’t completely swallow up the rest of the competition. When “Minecraft” opened to $163 million, the number two movie, “A Working Man,” made just over $7 million. That was far from the case this past weekend.
For starters, “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith” pulled in more than $25 million, delivering one of the best opening grosses ever for a theatrical re-release. Then we had “The Accountant 2” open to $24.4 million, essentially matching the original’s opening weekend from nine years ago. Meanwhile, “Minecraft” stayed strong, adding another $22.7 million in its fourth weekend, crossing the $800 million mark globally.
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All told, four movies made at least $20 million over the weekend. It’s only the second time in the pandemic era that has happened, joining the weekend of June 24, 2022 when “Elvis” ($31 million), “Top Gun: Maverick” ($29 million), “Jurassic World Dominion” ($26 million), and “The Black Phone” ($23 million) all did it.
