Wednesday, May 20, 2026

Box Office: “Project Hail Mary” Scores with $34 Million Thurs-Fri Opening, Shoots for $70 Mil Weekend

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Amazon can finally forget about “Melania.”

“Project Hail Mary” scored $33 million from Thursday previews and Friday opening day.

Amaze, amaze.

The Phil Lord-Christopher Miller space bonanza is looking at a $70 million weekend. Stunning.

Amazon has waited and waited for years for a gigantic hit, a real hit, the kind they can boast about.

I did love “Manchester by-the-Sea,” but Casey Affleck never left Earth.

Ryan Gosling is all but assured awards action next winter, and so are all the below-the-line artists who’ve made a production for the ages.

If only Melania Trump had waited. She could have been on the spaceship with “Rocky” when Gosling’s Ryland Grace arrived!

Meantime, “The Bride!”– the poor bride — stood up, returned gifts, trying to sell the wedding dress on ebay — dropped 1,900 theaters on its way to streaming somewhere — like HBO Max — where it can be shown as the centerpiece of fun parties. There might be a drinking game involved!

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Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman is the founder and editor-in-chief of Showbiz411. He wrote the FOX411 column on FoxNews.com from 1999 to 2009 and previously edited Fame magazine and wrote the "Intelligencer" column at New York magazine. His bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Vogue, Details, and the Miami Herald. He is a voting member of the Critics Choice Awards (Film and Television branches), and his movie reviews are tracked by Rotten Tomatoes. is articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. With D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, he co-produced the 2002 documentary "Only the Strong Survive," which screened at Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

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