Fourth weekend of April 2026

Going into this part of the year, even though we have some really solid openings on the release calendar, I suspected we would fall short of last year. With Sinners doing its thing and a strong supporting cast of holdovers, it was a big lift to get even with the same gross. That suspicion is coming true and outside of a couple of weeks where we have a shot at being even with last year (May 8 and May 15), get used to that lead we had over 2025 getting smaller. We were 23% or so ahead of last year a couple of weeks ago, but because Easter was later last year (it was last weekend) we’ve been giving back big chunks every day and we’re now only about 15% ahead, and that’s going to continue to decline. So buckle up, it’s probably going to be a bumpy ride until we get to Father’s Day.

This weekend last year was all about the sum of the parts, and although we have a terrific opening gross this weekend, having 4 films gross over $20 million (Sinners, Star Wars Episode I re-issue, Accountant 2 and Minecraft) last year made it hard to match. Putting aside the two new films that opened over $20 million, just the (lightning in a bottle) -5% holdover on Sinners and week 4 on Minecraft added up to about $68 million, so as good as Michael is this weekend (depending on what it does on Saturday) we’ll probably still be a little short this weekend. So just getting close to last year (if we fall short) is an accomplishment.

Speaking of Michael, I know I’ve made it clear how little I think of the state of film criticism these days, but the reviews on Michael are just weird. What do they think their job is? Reporter? Social Change Warrior? Film Karen? Were they misinformed that this was a documentary?

As someone who used to have a job that is kinda similar to what critics do (I was a film buyer for 15 years and saw pretty much everything), there’s an aspect to film critics that I get. You see so much that it all melds into a bland pile of goo, and anytime you see something that’s a little different, you respond to it because it’s not the same movie on a loop. But that doesn’t mean the those movies that keep hitting the same notes over and over again are bad, it’s just something you’ve seen before and if there’s a big evolution in film criticism, it’s that critics make it all about them (because it doesn’t speak to them and they can’t tell the difference anymore). And the reviews on Michael seem to lean towards ’this is what I think it should be about’, and it puzzles me why they think a reader should care about that.

Or course, that’s consistent with where everything else has gone today (it’s no longer ‘we the people’, it’s now ‘me the people’); but critics have gone from giving you the knowledge that would help you determine if the film was worth your time/money (and that was their job), to being indistinguishable to the comments on the YouTube page of the trailer. And we see this disconnect between critics and consumers getting wider and wider, it’s crazy how many artsy Horror movies come through the pipeline where the critics gush ‘bravo!’ and the consumer says ‘WTF is this shit?’ But why is there such a chasm between the two?

That’s a two part answer and the first part is probably because that artsy Horror film is a relief from the similar movies the critics are seeing over and over again (which having experienced that, I get) and is just different. And the second part is that it’s not only different, by being different it’s built for them, instead of your standard moviegoing consumer who doesn’t see absolutely everything. But that’s the point where critics have lost their way, and just like everything else today it probably has something to do with how easy it is to become one*, it’s they don’t seem to take into account what a movie was built to do and if it wasn’t built for them it’s got to suck, even though the normal movie goer isn’t going to have the same experience.

One of the things that’s great about art is there’s no right answer. If you go see a movie and whoever you go with hates it and you love it, neither of you are wrong, and that’s the beauty of art. But once you get to the scale we deal with in this sector, it’s an intersection of art and commerce; and where there is no wrong answer on the art side, there’s definitely an answer on the commerce side. When you see a lot of the same aspects in the Michael reviews that use words like ’troubling’ and ‘incomplete’, they don’t seem to be taking into account what film the filmmakers wanted to make with Michael, and in their minds it wasn’t a success. They don’t seem to take into account what it was meant to do.

We see this a lot now from critics, both in this genre and in the Sports Biopic genre (just look at the RT for some recent films like The Boys in the Boat and Christy, where there’s a 40 point difference between the critics and the audience), and their biggest complaint is ‘predictable’ and the backhanded complaint is ‘it’s a crowd pleaser’; and oddly enough they’re right on the latter because the audience score is in the high 90’s. But what if the filmmakers wanted to make a crowd pleaser, and the audiences they made it for found it very satisfying? The big problem I’ve got here with the critics pushing back is that MJ’s life was so completely chronicled, we know all the dark stuff, and if the film succeeds even though we know all the other stuff, isn’t that a success? Do they think it would be better if we had the Ari Aster version of this (pending availability)? For a lot of these Biopics, the tag line in the materials is often ’the story you didn’t know’, but that’s not the movie this is and the insane gross this weekend says that’s a good idea.

Anyway, with the same expected accuracy as me criticizing critics, but might suck at criticizing critics, here are some thoughts on the weekend box-office.

Michael - Thank god for the critics, now that they’ve bashed this (and the exits from the audience are asking how much crack they are on) there seems to be a marketplace reflex, and now consumers who weren’t going to go want to see exactly how much crack they are on. It’s really good today, and obviously there’s an AA skew to the grosses; but similar to another AA skewing music biopic, Straight Outta Compton, it’s got a strong crossover with non AA’s. There’s a lot of really big numbers floating around today but this genre has a sketchy record of front loaded grosses, so today is just the first step. Another successful music Biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody, dropped 25% from Friday to Saturday; and Straight Outta Compton was flat. So even though this looks better than some non music Biopics like Dune Part Two and Oppenheimer today, those films went up a healthy amount on Saturday (and had a strong Sunday) to get past $80 million. But today is sensational and it’s going to take a drop tomorrow like Bohemian to keep this any lower than $80 million, and if it continues it’s newfound inertia, getting a 9 in front of it isn’t out of the question. But a really big win (on a bet that’s not for the faint of heart) for Lionsgate.

As they say, the tide lifts all boats and a couple of the holdovers are having a pretty good day. Both Super Mario and Project Hail Mary are having pretty good days and it’s another great week for Project Hail Mary because they gave most of their PLF showtimes up this week. But both look like they could have drops in the 30s.

Mother Mary - Expanded to 1200 runs and there’s not much going on, maybe a little over a million for the weekend.

Over Your Dead Body - Went 1600 runs and it has a shot at getting to $1 million for the weekend, but should probably fall a little short.

Fuze - Went 1100 runs and looks like $400k or so.

Desert Warrior - Went 1000 runs and looks a step below Fuze, so maybe $300k.

I Swear - The film that won Michael B. Jordan the Oscar went 600 runs, and most theaters ‘please no talking during the movie’ policy might be holding this gross down but it looks like only $100k or so.

• kind of like Podcasts, which are full of dipshits with nothing to say, so they just interview other dipshits with podcasts who have nothing to say.