Disney/20th Century/Lightstorm’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash” is leading what has been a fruitful pre-Christmas weekend at the box office, leading the charts with an $88 million domestic opening and $345 million worldwide.
While that’s well short of the $134 million domestic/$434.5 million global opening of “Avatar: The Way of Water” in 2022 and likely rules out “Avatar” becoming the first franchise ever with three $2 billion installments, this launch should be enough to make “Fire and Ash” the highest grossing Hollywood film of the year, albeit second to the $2 billion Chinese animated film “Ne Zha 2.”
That’s because “Avatar 3” is expected to take advantage of the holidays to leg out well past the rest of this year’s offerings. With premium format screenings expected to be filled up over the next two weeks and the historically slower Christmas Eve falling on a Wednesday this year, “Fire and Ash” should leg out to at least $400 million domestic and $1.6 billion worldwide, buoyed by strong reception from fans of the series that includes an A on CinemaScore, 92% Rotten Tomatoes audience score and a 72% “definite recommend” on PostTrak.
Taking second is Angel’s “David,” which has set a new studio record with a $22 million from 3,318 locations, passing the $19.6 million of the 2023 indie hit “Sound of Freedom.”
Touting $15 million in presales, “David” positioned itself not only as a can’t-miss film for faith-based audiences, but one that unlike major studio animated family films released in this weekend slot was a film that they couldn’t wait until Christmas to see.
The film is also getting a boost in its bottom line from the Angel Guild, the studio’s supporter platform that allows viewers to provide input on which projects they’d like to see greenlit and donate tickets to allow others to see films like “David” for free through Angel’s “Pay It Forward” program.
While it’s unclear whether the strong word-of-mouth for “David” will extend beyond Christian and Jewish families, the holiday period should give the film more than enough room to pass the $60.2 million domestic run of Angel’s Easter 2025 animated success “The King of Kings.” If it achieves a 4x multiple, then it it will have passed the $72.9 million domestic run of Pixar’s “Elio.”
Lionsgate’s “The Housemaid” takes third with a $19 million opening from 3,015 locations. With an opening weekend audience that was 70% female and 75% over the age of 25, this Sydney Sweeney/Amanda Seyfried thriller is hoping to get strong turnout and repeat screenings from a specific demographic.
While audience reception looked initially bumpy with a B on CinemaScore, the audience score at Rotten Tomatoes has reached 92% to go with a 75% critics score. If the film earns a 3.5x multiple and exceeds roughly $65 million domestically, it will become Lionsgate’s highest grossing film in the past two years.
Paramount’s “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants” takes fourth with $16 million from 3,557 locations. While comparisons to “David” will certainly be made online, it’s worth remembering that the majority of families interested in seeing the Nickelodeon animated hero are likely waiting until Christmas or New Year’s weekend to do so, so the chance for long legs into January is still very possible.
Audience reception scores are generally strong with an A- on CinemaScore and RT scores of 88% critics and 77% audience, though the film likely won’t reach the $163 million domestic total of its 2015 predecessor “Sponge Out of Water” barring a historic 10x multiple.
Disney’s “Zootopia 2” completes the top 5 with $14.5 million in its fourth weekend, bringing its total to $282.8 million domestic and $1.27 billion worldwide. On Monday, it will become the 15th film in box office history to gross $1 billion outside of the U.S. and Canada.
Finally, A24’s “Marty Supreme” has earned an incredible $875,000 from its platform release on six screens in New York and Los Angeles, earning the top per theater average of the year ahead of its Christmas Day wide release, where it is expected to gross $10-15 million over four days.
More to come…