This Week in Theaters and Streaming: The Terror Returns, Hugh Jackman Talks to Sheep, and Mortal Kombat Crashes the Party

4 months ago by Alex Reed 5 min read

---

We're three days into May and this is finally the week things get interesting again. The Terror returns to AMC+ for its long-awaited third season, Hugh Jackman of all people is voicing a shepherd who reads detective novels to his sheep, Mortal Kombat II is crashing the party with $40-50M tracking, and Devil Wears Prada 2 keeps stealing the weekend after that monster $77M opening. Here's what's actually worth your time May 4-10.

At a glance: May 4-10

This is a holdover-heavy frame for the box office, but the new releases punch above their weight. Two of them are unusually critic-friendly (more on that in a minute), one is the kind of franchise sequel that lives or dies on opening-weekend math, and the streaming side has the Wednesday hit you've been waiting for since last week. Here's the breakdown.

The Terror returns: "Devil in Silver" hits AMC+ Thursday May 7

After two seasons and a long quiet, The Terror is back for Season 3: "Devil in Silver" — premiering Thursday, May 7 on AMC+ and Shudder, with new episodes weekly and a later AMC linear run.

This one stars Dan Stevens as Pepper, a working-class moving man who, through a combination of bad luck and a worse temper, finds himself wrongfully committed to New Hyde Psychiatric Hospital. It's a six-episode limited series adapted from Victor LaValle's novel, with LaValle himself co-showrunning alongside Chris Cantwell (Halt and Catch Fire) and Ridley Scott exec producing.

If you missed the first two installments — Sir John Franklin's doomed Arctic expedition (S1, 2018) and the Japanese-American internment supernatural arc (S2 "Infamy", 2019) — this is an anthology, so you can drop in cold. The early reviews are calling Stevens' performance the kind of thing that single-handedly justifies an anthology revival.

Hype rating: 9/10. This is the prestige horror anthology that built its reputation on patience and craft, and the trailer suggests they haven't traded either away.

The Sheep Detectives: a 94% RT wildcard nobody saw coming

Here's the curveball of the week. The Sheep Detectives (title-detail) opens wide Friday May 8 — a family mystery comedy from director Kyle Balda and writer Craig Mazin (yes, that Craig Mazin — Chernobyl, The Last of Us), based on Leonie Swann's 2005 novel Three Bags Full.

The setup is exactly what it sounds like: Hugh Jackman plays George, a shepherd who reads detective novels to his sheep every night, assuming they can't possibly understand. When a mysterious incident disrupts the farm, the sheep realize they have to become the detectives. The voice cast is stacked — Emma Thompson, Nicholas Braun, Nicholas Galitzine, Molly Gordon, Hong Chau, Bryan Cranston, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Chris O'Dowd, Regina Hall, and Patrick Stewart all show up.

And then there's the number nobody saw coming: 94% on Rotten Tomatoes — the highest-rated film of Hugh Jackman's entire career. Metacritic landed at 66 (generally favorable), so critics are split between "this is a charming little gem" and "it's slighter than that score suggests." But original non-franchise comedies hitting numbers like this in 2026 is genuinely rare.

Hype rating: 8/10. If you have a Saturday afternoon and kids in the house, this is the one. If you're cynical about family movies, the 94% is the tell that something unusual is happening.

Mortal Kombat II crashes the party

Warner Bros. moved Mortal Kombat II to May 8 after delays from October 2025 and May 15 — and it's now opening head-to-head with The Sheep Detectives for completely different audiences. Tracking is $40-50M domestically, which would be a meaningful improvement over the 2021 reboot's $23M opening.

This is the action-vs-family-mystery counterprogramming weekend, and on paper it works for both films. Mortal Kombat II has the entire R-rated genre lane to itself — no superhero release, no horror — while The Sheep Detectives picks up the family / older-skewing-female audience that's already showing up for Devil Wears Prada 2.

Hype rating: 7/10 if you're in the franchise lane; lower if you're not.

The box-office holdovers nobody is letting go

Devil Wears Prada 2 finished its opening weekend at $77M domestic / $233.6M global — the 4th-best 2026 opening behind Super Mario Galaxy Movie ($131M), Michael ($97.5M), and Project Hail Mary ($80M). It almost tripled the 2006 original's $27.5M whole-weekend take, landed an A- CinemaScore, and held a 77% RT critic / 88% RT audience split that (Riley's W18 verdict called the "earned its existence — barely" frame). Expect a -45 to -55% W2 drop into the $35-42M range.

Michael keeps refusing to fade. Its W2 hold of -44% (better than the projected -48%) at $54M took the global cume past $413M. W3 should land in the $25-30M range, which is the kind of legs that makes biopics produce sequels nobody asked for.

If you've been tracking the larger month-over-month battle, my W18 May Day clash piece walks through what kind of opening Devil Wears Prada 2 needed to hit to dent a Michael that was already beating expectations. Short version: the bar was high, and they cleared it.

Streaming midweek heavyweights

The Boys S5 Episode 6 "Though the Heavens Fall" drops Wednesday May 6 around 07:00 UTC on Prime Video — episode 6 of 8, and after last week's Ep5 "One-Shots" (Sam's check-in) killed off a major character and pivoted Homelander into total-isolation mode, the next move matters. Prediction: the title is doing some heavy lifting.

Also Wednesday: Citadel Season 2 lands on Prime Video, going head-to-head with Boys Ep6 in the same prime-time block. Lord of the Flies (Netflix series adaptation) drops Monday. Wuthering Heights hits HBO Max midweek for the literary-adaptation crowd.

The verdict

Two things to watch this week: whether The Sheep Detectives turns its 94% RT into actual box office (family wildcards usually undershoot critic enthusiasm), and whether The Terror: Devil in Silver can bring the prestige-horror crowd back after a six-year wait. The box-office story is mostly Devil Wears Prada 2 vs. Michael holdovers; the new-release story is genuinely interesting for the first time in a few weeks.

Quick hype scoreboard: Terror 9, Boys Ep6 9, Sheep Detectives 8, Mortal Kombat II 7. Talk to you next week.