Can Sinners break the mold as the next big-budget horror hit?

Ryan Coogler is reuniting with Michael B. Jordan again; this time, it's going all supernatural with Sinners, which is hitting theaters on April 18, 2025. There's quite a buzz around the big-budget horror film, with its production cost estimated to be around $100 million. The point is, will it be reaching new highs among the horror genre when the box office performance is concerned?

Though the premise looks promising, which is as follows:

"Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers (Jordan) return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back."

Yes, that's double trouble for whatever evil awaits in the movie. Other than Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Omar Miller, Li Jun Li, and more also star. Coogler's last film, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022), did business of $860 million following the release; hopes for Sinners to see such a success are high.

How have Ryan Coogler’s films performed as a director?

It is known that the one at the top of the horror box office, Bill Skarsgard, didn't just lure children in that drain but the audience in the theaters too, raking in over $700 million, making it look like a 'penny.' The sequel to it, It Chapter Two (2019), increased the production budget to $79 million, but then earnings fell to $473 million; still, that was profitable.

If we look around at horror films that were made around a similar budget as Sinners, then Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) has to be there, which carried $451 million home with it. Alien: Romulus was there in the same year, and it pulled $350 million. The movie that came before in the franchise, Alien: Covenant (2017), grossed $240 million.

A few more films in a similar range as Sinners came early, between 1999 and 2005. That club includes 1999's Sleepy Hollow ($207 million), 2001's Hannibal ($351 million), 2002's Signs ($408 million), and 2005's Constantine ($230 million).

How Ryan Coogler's films has performed as a director?

As a director, Sinners will be the fifth film for Ryan Coogler, where all of the films, except for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, saw Michael B. Jordan in major roles, beginning with Fruitvale Station (2013), which is based on events that led to the death of Oscar Grant. The film earned $17 million against its $900k budget.

Then came Creed in 2015, the seventh installment in Sylvester Stallone's Rocky franchise. Stallone's titular character has retired in multiple films in the popular franchise; Creed is one of them, where he takes up the role of Adonis Creed (Jordan) in the film. It made a business of $173 million against a $40 million budget.

Following that, Coogler directed a couple of films, Black Panther (2018) and its sequel, which would earn him over a couple billion dollars at the box office. A couple of years later, after Black Panther's release, Chadwick Boseman, who plays the titular T'Challa, succumbed to cancer. Recently, Coogler revealed that it hit Jordan hard.

Looking at this collaboration and Coogler's direction, he has seen some commercially successful results. Now that both Jordan and Coogler are back together, it is likely that this big-budget horror will show some big box office results.