Key Takeaways
Total 3-Day Weekend Gross:
$131,828,296 | -25.7% Last Week / +21.2% Weekend 1, 2026
The year 2026 starts off strong with the biggest Frame 1 of the post-COVID era, along with a huge year-over-year bump from this time in 2025. While strong holdovers like Zootopia 2 and The Housemaid played a part, the box office power of Avatar: Fire and Ash is the pillar here. With an estimated $40M, it nearly out-grossed the Top 2 from Frame 1 2025 (Mufasa and Sonic 3) combined ($44.8M).
- Top Title: Avatar: Fire and Ash (20th Century) | $40M / 3,835 Screens / $10,430 PSA | Week 3
- Top Opener: We Bury the Dead (Vertical) | $2.5M / 1,172 Screens / $2,159 PSA | Week 1
- Best PSA: No Other Choice (Neon) | $991.25K / 45 Screens / $22,028 PSA | Week 2
1. Avatar: Fire and Ash
20th Century Studios | Week 3
$40M 3-Day Weekend | $305.99M Domestic Total
$1.08B Global Total
20th Century’s Avatar: Fire and Ash continues to toast the competition by maintaining first place for the third frame in a row at an estimated $40M from 3,835 screens for a $10,430 PSA. That’s another soft -37% drop for King of the World James Cameron’s sci-fi threequel, which has now flown past the $300M landmark for a $305.99M domestic total.
It currently rests at #7 on the 2025 domestic chart, next looking to pass Universal’s Wicked: For Good and Jurassic World Rebirth, which both sit around $339M. The movie is also now solidly in the black for Disney, clearing the way for yet more sequels already in the pipeline. Another fun fact: At $9.65B and climbing, James Cameron is now only around $1B away from replacing Steven Spielberg ($10.7B) as the highest-grossing helmer of all-time, with neither of those numbers taking into account producing credits or television.
Here’s how the 3-Day looked…
- Friday – $14M
- Saturday – $16.16M
- Sunday – $9.8M
Of course, overseas is where the money fountain is turned on full blast. Avatar: Fire and Ash garnered $129.6M from 51 material territories, dropping an average -29% overall. Top 3 international markets are China ($137.9M), France ($81.0M), and Germany ($64.1M), with Hong Kong -the only major territory yet to open- set to bow next week. The international total is now at $777.1M, helping the movie cross the coveted $1B landmark with $1.08B. An estimated $22.5M of that came from the IMAX global network this weekend, entering the Top 10 all-time IMAX releases with $140M total in the large format.
The film is now #3 on the 2025 global chart, behind only Zootopia 2 ($1.58B) and China’s Ne Zha 2 ($2.24B). It is a foregone conclusion that Fire and Ash will most likely surpass Zootopia in the coming weeks as that animated title begins to wind down, but Ne Zha is another question. The last Avatar film The Way of Water earned $2.32B in 2022, but the third film is having a hard time keeping pace with it. Domestically at this point in its run, The Way of Water had $425.5M, representing a -28% film-over-film shortfall.
Other Notable Performances
Disney’s Zootopia 2 ($19M at #2) and Lionsgate’s The Housemaid ($14.86M at #3) both enjoyed exceptionally low drop-offs (-4% and -3%) in the post-holiday corridor. The success of Housemaid as a mid-level erotic thriller is noteworthy in a market where Lifetime and Netflix have completely saturated that market. In terms of director Paul Feig’s track record, this new film is his fifth highest-grossing as a director and has already bested his previous theatrical in this genre A Simple Favor both domestically ($75.7M vs $53.5M) and globally ($133M vs $97.6M).
Next Weekend
In the tradition of mid-eighties monkeysploitation (Link, Monkey Shines, etc) comes Primate, Paramount’s simian answer to Cujo where a family’s pet chimp is bitten by another animal and becomes rabid/violent. Rotten Tomatoes critical out of last year’s Fantastic Fest is great at 92%, so this has all the earmarks of a solid January horror programmer. Lionsgate’s Greenland 2: Migration is the sequel to the 2020 COVID casualty about Gerard Butler surviving an apocalyptic event which skipped domestic theaters but still managed to make $40M overseas. We will also get the limited opening of Gus Van Sant’s hostage thriller Dead Man’s Wire starring Bill Skarsgård.
Sunday Studio Estimates | Weekend 1 – 2026
Total 3-Day Domestic Gross: $131,828,296 | (+21.2% vs 2025)
| Title | Weekend Estimate | % Change | Locations | Location Change | PSA | Domestic Total | Week | Distributor |
| Avatar: Fire and Ash | $40,000,000 | -37% | 3,835 | 35 | $10,430 | 305,995,254 | 3 | 20th Century |
| Zootopia 2 | $19,000,000 | -4% | 3,285 | -85 | $5,784 | 363,612,160 | 6 | Disney |
| The Housemaid | $14,865,000 | -3% | 3,070 | 28 | $4,842 | 75,724,000 | 3 | Lionsgate |
| Marty Supreme | $12,554,127 | -29% | 2,887 | 219 | $4,349 | 56,000,736 | 3 | A24 |
| Anaconda | $10,000,000 | -31% | 3,509 | n/c | $2,850 | 45,861,000 | 2 | Sony |
| The SpongeBob Movie: Search for Squarepants | $8,200,000 | -26% | 3,217 | -353 | $2,549 | 57,634,000 | 3 | Paramount |
| David | $8,002,169 | -36% | 2,900 | -218 | $2,759 | 70,112,579 | 3 | Angel Studios |
| Song Sung Blue | $5,810,000 | -18% | 2,705 | 127 | $2,148 | 24,943,000 | 2 | Focus Features |
| Wicked: For Good | $3,260,000 | -39% | 1,885 | -123 | $1,729 | 339,880,000 | 7 | Universal |
| Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 | $2,700,000 | -39% | 1,986 | -294 | $1,360 | 125,221,000 | 5 | Universal |
| We Bury the Dead | $2,530,390 | 1,172 | $2,159 | 2,530,390 | 1 | Vertical | ||
| No Other Choice | $991,250 | 198% | 45 | 32 | $22,028 | 1,980,221 | 2 | Neon |
| Hamnet | $710,000 | -2% | 312 | -79 | $2,276 | 11,823,000 | 6 | Focus Features |
| The Plague | $400,000 | 590 | 588 | $678 | 445,118 | 2 | IFC | |
| Is This Thing On? | $250,000 | 22% | 33 | n/c | $7,576 | 1,035,747 | 3 | Searchlight |
| The Secret Agent | $204,230 | -11% | 117 | -19 | $1,746 | 1,869,176 | 6 | Neon |
| Eternity | $180,654 | -27% | 122 | -81 | $1,481 | 15,919,284 | 6 | A24 |
| Resurrection | $132,400 | 601% | 86 | 78 | $1,540 | 345,744 | 4 | Janus Films |
| Sentimental Value | $85,514 | 8% | 70 | -12 | $1,222 | 4,029,957 | 9 | Neon |
| The Testament of Ann Lee | $66,000 | -12% | 4 | n/c | $16,500 | 258,709 | 2 | Searchlight |
| Father, Mother, Sister, Brother | $51,688 | 17% | 4 | n/c | $12,922 | 187,667 | 2 | MUBI |
| Predator: Badlands | $46,000 | -56% | 50 | -120 | $920 | 91,027,639 | 9 | 20th Century |
| Ella McCay | $34,000 | -60% | 115 | -335 | $296 | 4,004,812 | 4 | 20th Century |
| It Was Just an Accident | $23,000 | 23% | 15 | n/c | $1,533 | 1,660,374 | 12 | Neon |
| Mistress Dispeller | $1,363 | 19% | 4 | 1 | $341 | 89,655 | 11 | Oscilloscope |
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