Boardroom breaks down how the Ryan Gosling-led thriller dominated the weekend box office.
The other day, I got a text from my editor out of the blue. It simply asked, “Have you seen Project Hail Mary?” My answer was no, as I’ve been preoccupied and haven’t been able to hit the cinema, but I asked why, mostly because the latest Ryan Gosling flick, despite big buzz in the mainstream, hasn’t been a topic of our chats lately.
“I just saw the news that it’s Amazon‘s biggest opening,” was his response.
Now, when you follow movies like we follow movies, you’re in tune with certain days of the week more so than others. New Marvel dropping? That opening Thursday night is going to be blocked off your calendar — for spoiler purposes, with the spoiler ban being lifted the following Monday. Saturday nights, either in theaters or on premium cable channels like HBO and Showtime, were reserved for new movies as well. But Sundays? Sundays are for the box office number watchers. Throughout the week, studios and analysts try to predict the opening numbers of big releases and how they may stack up against movies that are already making bank in theaters, and by mid-afternoon on Sundays, the real numbers are presented to the masses, which then starts the “did it flop or nah” conversations surrounding the aforementioned big movies.
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Now, when I hear that Project Hail Mary was Amazon MGM Studios‘ biggest opening film ever, taking in $80.5 million domestically ($140.9 million at the global box office), I had one question: “Well, what were their other films?” I’d seen the trailer before; it’s about a guy named Ryland Grace who wakes up on a spacecraft with no idea how he got there. Oddly enough, when I saw the trailer, I must have forgotten it was an Amazon MGM Studios release — but that may be why Project Hail Mary became their biggest theatrical opening so far.
Then I remembered that Amazon MGM Studios wasn’t even a thing until 2022, and that the last “biggest opening weekend” distinction for Amazon went to 2023’s Creed III, which brought in $100.4 million globally during its opening weekend, although it is technically an MGM film that became an Amazon film after the acquisition. This all begs the question: How’d we get here?
Amazon Opened a Studio
While Amazon Studios was launched in November 2010, it didn’t release its first Amazon Original Movie, Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq, until 2015. Lee has always had issues with distributing his films, so this move made sense for both parties, even if the end result left much to be desired. They’d continue to release smaller films with known actors, like 2016’s Elvis & Nixon — which featured Michael Shannon as Elvis Presley and Kevin Spacey as Richard Nixon — or The Neon Demon, starring the Oscar-nominated Elle Fanning. That year also saw the release of the awards-season darling Manchester by the Sea, but again, these were mostly smaller films that weren’t expected to perform well at the box office, as Amazon Studios was still establishing itself as a production house and distributor.
This trend continued: They’d release buzzy films like 2017’s The Big Sick or the 2018 Suspiria remake, or hope to pile on loads of award nominations for documentaries like I Am Not Your Negro or Time. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Amazon continued to acquire films but never solidified itself as a trusted movie production company — which isn’t a diss. Folks remember the controversy surrounding 2023’s Saltburn; did you remember that it was an Amazon release? The more I thought about this, the more I understood why my editor was shocked when they discovered that Project Hail Mary had Amazon’s biggest opening weekend; it’s just not something they’re really known for.
From Book to Blockbuster
The journey to the opening weekend success of 2026’s Project Hail Mary started with a 2021 novel of the same name that became the second film Drew Goddard adapted from an Andy Weir book — 2015’s The Martian being the first — after MGM bought the rights from Weir in 2020 for $3 million. Gosling was signed on to the project in March 2020, with Sony’s Spider-Verse directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller attached to direct that May. All it took was Amazon’s $8.5 billion acquisition of MGM in March 2022 to make Project Hail Mary an official Amazon film, just like Creed III.
Interesting look at mergers, acquisitions, and how easily the company that sends you books, back scratchers, and fidget spinners is also the distributor behind the — at the time of this writing — ninth-highest-grossing film of 2026.
Now, for the film to break even, Project Hail Mary reportedly has to bring in $500 million. With strong praise from critics — Project Hail Mary currently holds a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes — and a leading man like Ryan Gosling bringing a book that’s sat on the New York Times best-sellers list for over 40 weeks to life, that’s entirely possible. Spring break is hitting, and early word says Project Hail Mary is a crowd-pleaser, a well-timed popcorn film release just as the weather starts to break.
The real question is, can Amazon MGM do it again? That may be more difficult to predict. John Krasinski has spent four seasons playing Jack Ryan on Prime Video’s Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan series, but the film version of The Office star’s franchise, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War is premiering on Prime Video in May, not in theaters. June’s Masters of the Universe could potentially shine at the box office, but this is also a film that has Idris Elba and Kristen Wiig among its cast. Although if we’re being honest here, neither of these films currently feels like they will be the talk of the town in a few months.
Realistically, “Amazon’s biggest opening film” could end up being the only accolade Project Hail Mary receives. Breaking even is possible, but that also depends on good word of mouth. Can this opening weekend news usher in enough new faces to see Gosling’s return to space after playing Neil Armstrong in 2018’s First Man? Amazon hopes.
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