Finally, it’s no longer amateur hour at the box office. And considering the only good news I’ve read lately has been about either Alex Ovechkin’s goals or Watto not being dead after all (which I am non-ironically happy about), I can say it’s a relief to not be all “doom and gloom” for this like I had to be in March.
Our number one movie–again–is A Minecraft Movie, which continues to absolutely demolish tracking with a second weekend take of $80 million. For those doing their homework, that’s $20 million more than where expectations had it. Seriously, is tracking useless? Also, once actuals came in last week, Minecraft’s opening was even bigger than estimations had it, taking the pink crown from Barbie as the best ever for Warner Bros. The current total for the Jack Black comedy is $280 million, easily overtaking Captain America as the biggest film of 2025 so far.
I can now say with confidence that Minecraft is going to rule the remainder of April. Even though it’s looking to have a decent premiere next week, Sinners (also from Warner Bros., natch!) simply doesn’t have the momentum to overpower this silly video game adventure over a holiday weekend where all of the nation’s kids are off school. Granted, that fucking talking sneaker movie also opens next week, but is anyone actually going to see that one?
But speaking of animation, our number two movie might be a bit of a surprise. It’s not The Amateur, it’s The King of Kings, which earned a heavenly $19 million boosted by reportedly extravagant sales from church groups. If you’ve never heard of this one (which is quite possible, since this had like no mainstream advertising to speak of), it’s an animated Jesus film narrated by…Charles Dickens? Okay, so that’s not quite as out there as it might initially sound, as Dickens did write a story about Jesus he would tell his kids every Christmas. And really, that’s about the only unique thing going for this, as apart from the holy voice cast (Kenneth Branagh! Uma Thurman! Mark Hamill! Fucking Pierce Brosnan!), this kind of looks like a snooze, and with little kids being its target audience, why is the running time nearly two hours?
The King of Kings is an Angel Studios release, and while they are a punching bag, they do deserve credit for not going full Pureflix by releasing a bunch of “Christian persecution porn” like God’s Not Dead. Most of their films look, well, decent, and while the marketing campaign for Sound of Freedom does seem kind of shady, it’s worth noting that they didn’t even make that film. Why yes, it is a pet peeve of mine when people say “from the makers of Sound of Freedom” when talking about Angel Studios, as it was a generic action movie they acquired from Fox once Disney decided they didn’t want to deal with Jim Caviezel. From there, it got rebranded as a faith release, because for some reason certain Christian audiences really get off on its subject matter. Kings is by far the biggest success for Angel since Freedom, though I feel bad for any kids who are drug to this instead of Minecraft.
Moving on, we have The Amateur, which also beat tracking with an opening of $15 million. That’s not bad at all for a thriller in this day and age. Elsewhere, we have Warfare, an Iraq war actioner from…A24? What? Snark aside, this one was a big winner with critics, and $8 million isn’t too shabby for a heavy-handed flick like this, but I feel like this and The Amateur are aiming for the same audience. And if that’s not enough thrills for one weekend, we also have Drop, which had a fantastic trailer which also happened to be shown before every single movie I went to for the last few months. It dropped to an opening of $7.5 million, which is pretty disappointing, especially when you consider that number includes two nights of preview screenings in addition to Thursday.
And no, we’re not done, because Jesus is in our top ten yet again. That’s right, he gathered up his buddies for a third time in The Chosen: Last Supper: Part Three, and I could make fun all I want, but hey, this show clearly has its fans, and as far as such productions go it looks to be pretty high quality. But still, in the words of Homer Simpson, “I can’t believe we’re spending money for something we can watch at home for free!” It brought in $5.5 million, just out of the top five.
Anyway, the top ten, via Deadline
1.) A Minecraft Movie (WB/Leg) 4,289 (+26) theaters Fri $20.5M (-64%) Sat $34.4M Sun $25.7M 3-day $80.6M (-50%), Total $280.3M/Wk 2
2.) King of Kings (Angel) 3,200 theaters, Fri $7M, Sat $6.8M Sun $5.2M 3-day $19.05M/Wk 1
3.) The Amateur (20th) 3,400 theaters, Fri $6M Sat $5.4M Sun $3.6M 3-day $15M/Wk 1
4.) Warfare (A24) 2,670 theaters, Fri $3.55M Sat $2.7M Sun $2M 3-day $8.3M/Wk 1
5.) Drop (Uni) 3,085 theaters, Fri $3.3M, Sat $2.5M Sun $1.6M 3-day $7.5M/Wk 1
6.) Chosen Last Supper Part 3 (Fath) 2,296 theaters,Fri $2.5M, Sat $1.79M Sun $1.5M 3-day $5.8M/Wk 1
7) A Working Man (AMZ) 2,672 (-590) theaters, Fri $820K (-59%) Sat $1.3M Sun $883K 3-day $3.06M (-58%), Total $33.5M/Wk 3
8.) Snow White (Dis) 2,540 (-1,210) theaters, Fri $702K (-53%) Sat $1.3M Sun $798K 3-day $2.8M (-53%), Total $81.9M/Wk 4
9.) Woman in the Yard (Uni) 2,134 (-711) theaters, Fri $610K (-54%) Sat $930K Sun $560K 3-day $2.1M (-54%), Total $20.3M/Wk 3
10.) Chosen Last Supper Part 2 (Fath) 672 (-1641) theaters, Fri $253K (91%) Sat $366K Sun $312K 3-day $931,6K (-87%), Total $10.9M/ Wk 2