Disney’s “Zootopia 2” is set to take the No. 1 spot back from Universal/Blumhouse-Atomic Monster’s “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” with an estimated $26.5 million third weekend, all while becoming 2025’s third $1 billion hit.
But it’s not all good news for Disney on this pre-“Avatar: Fire and Ash” weekend, as 20th Century/Gracie Films’ “Ella McCay” is an instant box office bomb with just $850,000 grossed from 2,500 theaters on its opening day. It is heading for an industry estimated opening weekend of $2.2 million that will put it outside of the top 5 and below the Indian action thriller “Dhurandhar,” which earned $3.25 million from 377 theaters in its second weekend.
For Disney, “Ella McCay” isn’t a theatrical disaster on the level of earlier 2025 busts like “Snow White” or “Elio” given its reported production budget of around $35 million. Any loss the studio incurs from this film will be easily made up from the domestic opening day of “Avatar 3” alone.
But considering that this film is a mature PG-13 comedy from James L. Brooks, master of a bygone era of movies for grown-ups like “Broadcast News” and “As Good as It Gets,” it’s another demonstration of how difficult it is for such films aimed at older audiences to work at the box office anymore, especially when they are poorly reviewed as “Ella McCay” with a 23% Rotten Tomatoes score and a B- on CinemaScore.
Still, the continued success of “Zootopia 2” will be enough to make this weekend a net positive for Disney, as that film will cross $250 million domestic and $1.1 billion worldwide by Sunday, passing the $1.05 billion
While the film will lose a sizable chunk of its global screen count to “Avatar: Fire and Ash” next weekend, it remains on course to pass the $1.45 billion global total of “Frozen II” and become Disney Animation’s highest grossing film ever before inflation adjustment.
Elsewhere, “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” is earning a $20 million second weekend, bringing it to a 10-day domestic total of $95 million. The horror sequel is proving to be as frontloaded as the first “Five Nights,” dropping 69% from its $63 million opening, but will be a much-needed hit for Blumhouse after earlier busts in 2025 like “Wolf Man” and “M3GAN 2.0.”
More to come…
