While a franchise title still leads the box office with Warner Bros./Legendary’s “A Minecraft Movie” continuing its excellent run, a quartet of new releases is filling out the rest of the top 5, and none of them are sequels.
“Minecraft” is proving that it is not a frontloaded title at all with an $80.6 million second weekend, a total that was considered to be an optimistic outcome for its opening weekend in initial pre-release projections. But with millions of younger moviegoers excited to see the film thanks to memes and viral videos taken in theaters, it is proving to be the spring hit that theaters were starving for in March.
Overseas grosses are just as strong with $79.6 million, giving “Minecraft” a $269.6 million overseas total led by $39.8 million from the UK. Combined with $281 million from domestic theaters, the film has a running total of $550 million and is on pace to become Warner’s eighth $1 billion hit, already standing as 2025’s highest grossing movie so far.
In second is Angel Studios/Mofac Animation’s “The King of Kings,” an animated retelling of the Gospel stories that is bringing in Christian families to the tune of a $19 million opening weekend. That nearly matches the $19.6 million opening of Angel’s breakthrough 2023 hit, “Sound of Freedom.”
While it may be a tall order for “The King of Kings” to match the historic legs of “Sound of Freedom,” it should continue to get strong turnouts all the way through Easter next weekend with extra help from the “Pay It Forward” model that “Sound of Freedom” used to great effect. Like most faith-based films, “The King of Kings” has earned an A+ on CinemaScore, though what’s noteworthy is that it is now only the fifth non-Disney/Pixar animated title to earn such a grade.
Disney/20th Century’s “The Amateur” is in third with a $15 million opening weekend domestically and $32 million worldwide. The spy revenge thriller starring Rami Malek and Laurence Fishburne has work to do to turn a theatrical profit against its $60 million budget, but has earned generally positive word of mouth with a B+ on CinemaScore and Rotten Tomatoes scores of 61% critics and 88% audience.
In fourth is A24’s “Warfare” with an $8.3 million opening weekend from 2,670 locations. With a $20 million budget, the film should be able to get past the break even point despite having a limited audience as an R-rated, blisteringly accurate recreation of a battle in the Iraq War based on the recollections of co-director and Navy SEAL veteran Ray Mendoza.
The moviegoers who have seen the film are giving “Warfare” some of the highest marks ever given to an A24 wide release, including an A- on CinemaScore that marks only the second time the distributor has earned that mark.
Completing the top 5 is Universal/Blumhouse’s “Drop” with a $7.7 million opening weekend. Sporting an $11 million budget, the thriller about a woman forced to kill her date by a mysterious figure holding her sister and son hostage will easily turn a theatrical profit, but the question is whether Blumhouse can break out of its recent slump when it comes to creating standout hits like “M3GAN” and “The Black Phone.”
The good news for “Drop” is that while it has opened lower than the $9.3 million of Blumhouse’s poorly received “The Woman in the Yard,” it has earned better reception with a B on CinemaScore and RT scores of 83% critics and 80% audience. We will see next weekend if that’s enough to give “Drop” any legs.
Finally, against competition from “The King of Kings,” Fathom released the final episodes of season 5 of “The Chosen,” which grossed $6.1 million from 2,296 locations. Combined with the $31.3 million grossed by the previous two screenings of episodes, season 5 has grossed $37.1 million in theaters, topping the $31.5 million grossed by season 4 last year with Easter weekend still to come.
