COLUMBIA PICTURES, LIONSGATE, A24, WALT DISNEY PICTURES, 20TH CENTURY STUDIOS, NCS
By Auzinea Bacon, NCS
(NCS) — Moviegoers flocked to theaters for Disney’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash” on the final weekend of the 12 months, solidifying the sci-fi journey movie’s place as one of many largest blockbusters of 2025.
The third installment of director James Cameron’s “Avatar” movies raked in one other $64 million domestically Friday by way of Sunday, and roughly $181.2 million internationally, bringing its worldwide complete to $760.4 million.
“Fire and Ash” is the No. 6 highest-grossing movie worldwide this 12 months, having overtaken in style releases like Warner Bros. Discovery’s “Superman” and Sony Pictures’ “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle” in simply 10 days.
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The big-budget “Avatar” franchise, which incorporates movies from 2009 and 2022, has proved it might nonetheless draw giant audiences to theaters with its spectacular visible results. “Fire and Ash” has earned $96 million globally on IMAX and is anticipated to turn into IMAX’s largest Hollywood launch of the 12 months, in keeping with Disney.
“Premium formats (are) a huge factor for ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash,’ despite the fact that consumers are price-sensitive,” mentioned Paul Dergarabedian, head of market tendencies at Comscore.
Audiences had been additionally drawn to a various slate of flicks this weekend. Disney’s “Zootopia 2,” which opened on Thanksgiving, completed No. 2 on the box office with $20 million, a 35% leap from final weekend, in keeping with Comscore. “Zootopia 2” has grossed $1.4 billion worldwide — the second-highest-grossing film of the 12 months.
“(‘Zootopia 2’) gets the Most Valuable Player award for the holiday season,” mentioned Dergarabedian, who famous that PG-rated films earned $2.87 billion this 12 months, whereas outperforming PG-13 films.
At No. 3 was A24’s “Marty Supreme” — the sports activities comedy-drama starring Timothée Chalamet — which grossed $17.5 million amid a surge of consideration on social media. It was pushed by a male-dominated “Marty Army,” in keeping with A24, with one-third of the film’s viewers being below 25 years previous.
After opening in six theaters final weekend in New York City and Los Angeles, “Marty Supreme” rode a wave of Oscar and on-line buzz to propel it to box office success in over 2,600 theaters, in keeping with Shawn Robbins, director of film analytics at Fandango and proprietor of Box Office Theory.
“(A24) catered to the old and new mindsets of marketing a movie like this around the holidays, knowing that it would be an award season player,” he mentioned.
Lionsgate Films’ “The Housemaid,” which opened last weekend, was No. 4 this weekend at $15.4 million. It was adopted by Sony Pictures’ “Anaconda” ($14.5 million), a reboot of the 1997 film.
Angel Studios’ “David” ($12.69 million) completed sixth, forward of Paramount’s “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants” ($11 million). Focus Features’ “Song Sung Blue” opened this weekend at No. 8 with $7.6 million.
This was the most effective Christmas week for the box office since 2020, in keeping with Robbins.
“To have most of these seven major releases opening around Christmas do relatively well, and you either meet or exceed expectations — that has not happened very much in the post-Covid era,” Robbins mentioned.
The general home box office has grossed $8.76 billion in earnings in 2025, in keeping with Comscore information. That’s up 1.56% from final 12 months however nonetheless behind 2023, the one post-pandemic 12 months to boast $9 billion in earnings.
Box office numbers are nonetheless nicely behind 2019, when home earnings totaled greater than $11 billion.
But profitable December movies may carry over into a robust begin for 2026, in keeping with Dergarabedian, who estimates one other $100 million may be added by the top of the 12 months.
Dergarabedian mentioned a robust launch slate for films subsequent 12 months may give theaters their greatest 12 months for the reason that pandemic.
Some of subsequent 12 months’s largest films embody Universal Pictures’ “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” (April 3) and “Disclosure Day” (June 12), in addition to Disney’s “Toy Story 5” (June 19). “Avengers: Doomsday” and Warner Bros. Pictures’ “Dune: Part Three” are each slated for December 18.
The-NCS-Wire
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