Warner Bros.’ Heater Is Officially Over

Plus: ‘Project Hail Mary’ continues to blast off

It was a good run for Warner Bros., which scored a whopping nine consecutive No. 1 openings from A Minecraft Movie last year to Wuthering Heights last month.

But following the dismal debut for The Bride! in early March and this past weekend’s failure to launch They Will Kill You, the studio’s hot streak has ended.

“The heater’s officially over,” says Sean McNulty. “March has instilled the chill.”

It’s not like expectations were exceedingly high for the horror-thriller with Zazie Beetz, but the movie still flopped — earning just $5 million, the worst wide-release opening for a Warners title since The Alto Knights last year.

“You could blame the release date, following the similarly-themed Ready or Not 2: Here I Come last week,” Sean notes, while Christopher Rosen suggests a shift in the film’s promotion might have made the difference.

“There is a twist in this movie that happens within the first 15 minutes or so, and I wonder if it would have made more sense to give that away in the marketing,” Chris says, pointing out how Amazon MGM scored by revealing a key plot detail — the existence of Rocky the alien — in its trailers for Project Hail Mary. “Maybe it would have seemed a little more interesting to people.”

As for the top of the box office, Project Hail Mary continues to blast into the stratosphere as the year’s first bona fide blockbuster success. The Ryan Gosling movie dipped just 32 percent from its opening and topped $300 million worldwide.

“This movie could have gone wrong really easily,” Sean says. “So to see the audience respond like this is great.”