Project Hail Mary Is Closing In On Ridley Scott's Box Office Record After Passing Huge Domestic Milestone

2 weeks ago 9

Ryan Gosling posing on a red carpet for Project Hail Mary

Published Apr 4, 2026, 2:16 PM EDT

Brennan Klein (he/him) is a senior news writer at Screen Rant, host of the Attack of the Queerwolf podcast, and contributor at Alternate Ending and Horror Press. He has been writing and podcasting about pop culture (especially horror movies) for over a decade at platforms including Blumhouse, Fangoria, Dread Central, The Backlot, and Arrow in the Head.

Project Hail Mary is orbiting a potential box office record.

Per Deadline, as Project Hail Mary careens toward the end of its third weekend, Saturday morning's projections show that the movie is expected to earn a 3-day total of $32.6 million by the end of Sunday. While this sees it dropping to No. 2 behind the splashy new animated release The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, it brings the movie's cumulative domestic total to a whopping $219.1 million, making it the first 2026 release to pass the $200 million milestone at the domestic box office.

Additionally, 2026's Project Hail Mary is just $9.3 million away from surpassing the $228.4 million domestic total of Ridley Scott's 2015 adaptation of The Martian and becoming the highest-grossing Andy Weir adaptation in North America. It is entirely possible that Hail Mary could hit $228.5 million before the end of its third full week in theaters, but if it doesn't, its fourth weekend should allow it to rocket past that total.

If it earned just $9.3 million during its fourth weekend, that would represent a week-on-week drop of 71%, which would be a shocking collapse for the movie. This is exceedingly unlikely, because Project Hail Mary has shown strong audience retention thus far, dropping just 32.8% in its second weekend (tying for the tenth-lowest sophomore drop of all time for a sci-fi movie) and 40% in its third (during which it lost its IMAX theaters to Mario, which could have led to a much bigger drop).

However, the new movie still has a way to go if it hopes to outgross The Martian worldwide. The Ridley Scott movie made the majority of its box office overseas, with a $402.2 million international gross pushing its overall global haul to a whopping $630.6 million, making it the 35th highest-grossing sci-fi movie of all time. Project Hail Mary has so far only earned 45.1% of its overall gross from international markets, compared to The Martian's 63.8%, so it may not reach that goal.

However, there is a chance that the Ryan Gosling movie has what it takes to break that global record and become the highest-grossing Andy Weir movie yet. Project Hail Mary reviews have been superb, earning it scores of 95% from critics and 96% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, compared to The Martian's 91% and 91%. This increased level of enthusiasm could ultimately translate to a better box office performance as well.

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