The Boxoffice Podium
Forecasting the Top 3 Movies at the Domestic Box Office | January 23 – 25, 2026
Week 4 | January 23 – 25, 2026
1. Mercy
Amazon/MGM Studios | NEW
Weekend Range: $10M – $15M
Pros
- Amazon/MGM kicks off its first year with a full theatrical slate (including Project Hail Mary and Masters of the Universe) right in time for Avatar to start slowing down in the domestic market. Shot in early 2024, Mercy is the latest screen thriller from Russian helmer Timur Bekmambetov after Profile and producing the likes of 2025’s War of the Worlds and the Unfriended series. It stars superstar Chris Pratt as a cop having to solve his wife’s murder while bound to a chair as a futuristic AI judge gives him just 90-minutes to plead his case.
Cons
- Bekmambetov has not had a global hit since 2008’s Wanted made $342.4M WW, with major bombs like Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Ben-Hur to his credit. Although franchises like Marvel and Jurassic have delivered big pay days for Pratt (who appeared in Wanted), he hasn’t opened an original movie domestically since Passengers eked out $100M total a decade ago. Projects like The Tomorrow War and The Electric State have gone direct-to-streaming without generating much fanfare. The production utilized the virtual production method ‘The Volume’, which employs LED panels as backdrops. Even with audiences paying premium PLF 3D prices, there may be little incentive to see Pratt confined to a chair for most of the runtime, as the 33% Rotten Tomatoes score indicates.
2. Avatar: Fire and Ash
20th Century Studios | Week 6
Weekend Range: $7M – $10M
Pros
- This might be the end of the road for Avatar: Fire and Ash‘s reign at the top, but you can’t quite count out James Cameron like we did last weekend. An underperformance from the AI thriller Mercy could see it win the top spot for the sixth consecutive weekend, on its way towards matching its previous brethren which both spent seven weeks on top of the box office mountain.
Cons
- While the third Avatar stayed at #1 this past frame with only a -33% drop despite shedding -400 screens, there is only so long this megabucks franchiser can carry the industry on its shoulders. With January studio dumps lining up as content for theaters, Avatar is still the safest bet for the moviegoing dollar, but attractive streaming titles like Netflix’s The Rip are making the decision to brave the cold more challenging for moviegoers.
3. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
Sony Pictures | Week 2
Weekend Range: $6M – $8M
Pros
- While the $12.5M opening (half-a-million less than Sunday estimates) for 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple was not ideal, to say the least, word-of-mouth was excellent with an “A-” CinemaScore, 93% Rotten Tomatoes critical and 89% audience score plus a 4.5-star PostTrak rating. The studio is likely hoping that positivity translates to a low percentage drop in Frame 2.
Cons
- Sony could not have been happy with the underperformance of this movie, which (adjusted for inflation) is easily the lowest opener in the zombie series’ two decade+ history. The ending which sets up the return of a beloved award-winning actor for a planned third movie should probably have been delivered with this entry to give it a solid marketing hook. Making Ralph Fiennes carry the burden for putting butts in seats was ill-advised, as many viewers likely associate him with art house prestige fare like Conclave rather than blood-and-guts horror.
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