Long Range Forecast — January 9, 2026
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple | Sony
Domestic Opening Weekend Range: $20M – $30M
Director Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later series was revived last year with 28 Years Later, which garnered positive reviews and opened to a strong $30M but saw a steep drop in sales after opening weekend, ultimately grossing $70.4M in the domestic market. We expect that decline to be reflected in the performance of this film, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, the franchise’s first spinoff and its first entry not to be directed by Boyle. Helming things this time around is Nia DaCosta, whose legacy horror sequel Candyman opened to $22M in August of 2021.
28 Years Later came out in the middle of summer, where in its chase weeks it was up against new releases F1 and Jurassic World: Rebirth. In releasing its sequel in January, Sony opts for the reverse of a dating strategy used on several 2025 sequels. The sequel to M3GAN, a January hit, was released in July, and the newest entry in the John Wick franchise, Ballerina, was placed in the summer despite previous entries in the series mostly thriving in Q1. In both cases, the ambitious scheduling failed to pay off, with both sequels underperforming. In releasing The Bone Temple during what’s likely to be a quiet month for box office, Sony could snap up some ticket sales that it might not have gotten had the film faced more robust competition during a busier month. That said, The Bone Temple shares a release date with fellow horror title Primate, which we expect to appeal more-or-less only to fans of the horror genre. If word-of-mouth on the Paramount release is good, some of those horror fans might opt to see it on opening weekend and leave The Bone Temple for later. Currently, our opening weekend range for Primate is $5M-$10M.
Tracking Updates [As Of 12/12/25]
| Release Date | Title | Predicted Opening Range | Distributor |
| 12/12 | Ella McCay | $3M – $5M | 20th Century Studios / Disney |
| 12/12 | Hamnet (Expansion) | $3M – $5M | Focus Features / Universal |
| 12/19 | David | $15M – $20M | Angel Studios |
| 12/19 | The SpongeBob Movie: Search for Squarepants | $25M – $35M | Paramount |
| 12/19 | The Housemaid | $25M – $35M | Lionsgate |
| 12/19 | Avatar: Fire and Ash | $100M – $115M | 20th Century Studios / Disney |
| 12/25 | Anaconda | $20M – $30M | Sony |
| 12/25 | Marty Supreme | $10M – $15M | A24 |
| 12/25 | Song Sung Blue | $10M – $15M | Focus Features |
| 1/9 | Primate | $5M – $10M | Paramount |
| 1/9 | Greenland 2: Migration | $10M – $20M | Lionsgate |
| 1/9 | Soulm8te | $15M – $25M | Universal |
| 1/9 | I Was a Stranger | $1M – $2M | Angel Studios |
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